Relativistic plasma astrophysics with intense lasers.

Recent progresses of laser technologies enable us to investigate space and astrophysical phenomena in laboratories. In space plasmas the local observations by spacecrafts provide us the microscopic information of the plasma and electric/magnetic fields, however, it is difficult to obtain the global structures of the phenomena. In astrophysical plasmas, in contrast, global images provide us the macroscopic information, although there is no local observation and thus no microscopic information. Laboratory experiments on space and astrophysical phenomena provide us the local and global information simultaneously. We have investigated so far mostly non-relativistic phenomena in the universe with long laser pulses. Now we extend our research from non-relativistic to relativistic regime with an ultra intense laser, the 100 TW laser facility at National Central University. We introduce our facility and model relativistic phenomena in laboratory, focusing on the magnetic field generation and the magnetic reconnection in the universe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]