Bret Gergely will defend his thesis topic, “A Study of the Behavior of Light and Matter using Computer Simulations and Experimental Techniques” in person.

Abstract: This talk will be limited in scope to only the final two chapters of the thesis. First, a technique for generating initial conditions (IC) for short laser pulses will be presented. These ICs can be used to effectively simulate laser-plasma interactions while minimizing numerical defects. This approach involves utilizing both Runge-Kutta and finite difference methods to solve Maxwell’s equations with the new ICs. Numerical methods employed and their potential effects on the simulation results will be discussed. In addition, numerical corrections are derived and used to refine the ICs. Ultimately, the diagnostic analysis verifies consistency with theoretical expectations for Gaussian beams, including higher-order Laguerre-Gauss modes. The talk will finish with some theoretical work discussing Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) that was motivated by an experiment performed here at the Extreme Light Laboratory. Simulations and analysis are shown to give support for SRS as a likely explanation for the experimental data.