2026 SCientific DAY
Plas@par is pleased to invite its members to the 2026 Scientific Day, a full day dedicated to plasma physics, scientific exchange, and collaboration.
This event will bring together researchers, students, and members of the PLAS@PAR community to share their latest work, discover new research directions, and exchange ideas through tutorial talks, scientific presentations, and technical discussions.
Date: November 13th, 2026
Location: Room 108, buildings 44-45, Jussieu
Picture and poster contests
This year as well, we are also pleased to continue our tradition of the ooster contest and photo contest, with a prize awarded to the winner of each contest.
Prizes
- Photo contest: The winner, selected through a voting process, will receive an E-Paper tablet: a digital device with a paper-like display that is easy to read in direct sunlight and highly energy-efficient, making it ideal for reading, annotating, or working without eye strain.
- Poster contest: the person presenting the best poster according to the jury will receive a €100 Fnac gift card.
To see the photo contest participation guidelines and submit your picture, please click here:
Registration
Registration is free but mandatory. Click below to register:
Program
| Time | Speaker | Title | Abstract |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09:00 | Welcome coffee | ||
| 09:30 | Andrea Ciardi | News about the Federation | |
| 09:40 | Nicolas Aunai, LPP | Tutorial: PHARE & magnetic reconnection | |
| 10:20 | Kassie Molzuski, LULI | Numerical simulations studying the interplay of small- and large-scale turbulent dynamo | i Magnetized turbulence is a key process in astrophysical environments. While many mechanisms for creating seed magnetic fields have been proposed, such as the Weibel instability and the Biermann battery, these are tiny when compared to the observed values of the magnetic fields in the universe. Magnetized astrophysical plasmas, however, exist in a highly disturbed turbulent state, where the fluctuation dynamo mechanism can “stretch”, “twist”, and “fold” the tiny seed fields. This sequence of transformations results in the exponential amplification of the magnetic energy density, until it quickly becomes a sizable fraction of the available kinetic energy density of the turbulent motions. While this mechanism can account for present day magnetization at small spatial scales, large-scale dynamos are needed to explain the ordered field structures we observe in planets, stars, and galaxies. |
| 10:40 | Dimitra Koutroumpa, LATMOS | Mapping magnetospheric plasma structures with the SMILE Soft X-ray Imager | i The SMILE magnetospheric mission, a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), was launched last May from the European spaceport in Kourou. SMILE aims to investigate the dynamics of Earth’s magnetosphere and its global response to the solar wind. Its payload includes two remote sensing instruments: the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI) and an Ultraviolet Aurora Imager (UVI), as well as a suite of in-situ detectors, including the Light Ion Analyser (LIA) and a magnetometer (MAG), to monitor plasma properties in the solar wind and the magnetosheath. |
| 11:00 | Mandy Bethkenhagen, LULI | Ab initio calculations of simple molecules for the interior of giant planets | |
| 11:20 | Alejandro Alvarez-Laguna, LPP | High-order moment closures based on the hyperbolic quadrature method of moments for non-equilibrium partially-ionised reacting plasmas | |
| 11:40 | Philippe Zarka, LIRA | Low-frequency radio emissions from stellar and exoplanetary systems | i Thanks to the development of a new technique combining the advantages of radio imaging and time-frequency analysis – well suited to the detection of slow polarised transients – the detection of low-frequency radio bursts originating from stellar coronas, star-planet interactions, and even exoplanetary magnetospheres is now reaching maturity. Dozens of detections of circularly polarised radio bursts have been made using the LOFAR and NenuFAR radio telescopes. Their interpretation is based on the physics of the solar corona, the dynamics of planetary magnetospheres in the Solar System, and theories of radio emission generation. I shall present a brief summary and some examples of recent detections. When applied to the SKA, this method should yield several hundred additional detections, extending the comparative physics of exomagnetospheres and the associated space weather to star-planet plasma interactions. |
| 12:05 | Lunch provided by Plas@par & poster session | ||
| 14:00 | Stefano Gabici, APC | Tutorial: Introduction to Cosmic Rays | i I will present a brief overview on cosmic rays aimed at non-specialist. I will discuss what cosmic rays are, what they do, and what we know about their origin. |
| 14:40 | Mark Sherlock, LLNL (US) | Transport in fusion plasmas | |
| 15:00 | Marta Galbiati, LULI | Gamma-photon generation with near-critical foam-based targets at the Apollon multi-PW laser | i Ultrahigh-intensity laser interaction with matter can enable efficient electron acceleration processes and lead to the generation of MeV-energy gamma photons through emission processes like non-linear inverse Compton scattering (NICS) [1]. These high-energy photons are of great interest for creating efficient, bright gamma sources for strong-field quantum electrodynamics studies, electron–positron pair creation, and matter interrogation. All these applications require high-flux, high-density gamma beams to trigger low-probability processes and enable measurements of material properties [2–3]. Foam-based targets are particularly well suited for this purpose because their low density allows the formation of a near-critical plasma in which laser pulses with a₀ ≫ 1 can propagate [4]. In this interaction regime, kinetic simulations show that the laser efficiently transfers energy to a large population of electrons, leading to super-ponderomotive acceleration via direct laser acceleration [5] up to hundreds of MeV. This configuration creates favorable conditions for efficient and tunable gamma production when a solid metallic layer is placed behind the foam [6–8]. The accelerated electrons can generate gamma rays, especially by interacting with the laser field reflected from the solid foil, producing photons via NICS. This contribution will report on the experimental campaign performed in April 2026 using the 3 PW laser beam at Apollon [9], with targets produced by pulsed-laser deposition of carbon foam on thin metallic Al foils [10]. A double-plasma-mirror setup was used to achieve high-contrast laser pulses with a₀ ~ 50, corresponding to peak intensities approaching 10²² W/cm². To our knowledge, these intensity levels have been applied for the first time to foam-based targets. The laser pulses were incident at an angle of 10° onto tailored targets in which the yield of NICS photons was tuned by varying the carbon foam thickness over the range of 10–60 μm. The emitted gamma rays were diagnosed using scintillator-based spectrometers placed at three angular positions. By comparing experimental results with kinetic plasma simulations and Monte Carlo simulations of our setup, we show the effect of foam thickness on optimizing the radiation yield, and we demonstrate the possibility of creating a strong gamma signal dominated by NICS with such a configuration. |
| 15:20 | Yannice Soule, ONERA | What sets the thrust of an ECR plasma thruster? | i Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) thrusters are gridless electric propulsion devices in which microwaves heat electrons in a magnetized plasma source. The plasma then expands through a diverging magnetic field, the magnetic nozzle, producing thrust. While these thrusters commonly operate with noble gases such as xenon or argon, ONERA is investigating iodine as an alternative propellant. Unlike xenon, iodine is injected in molecular form and can undergo dissociation and electron attachment, introducing additional species and reaction pathways that the model must account for. To investigate these plasmas, we are developing a quasi-one-dimensional multi-fluid model coupling ions, electrons and neutrals. Before extending it to iodine, we assess the model using xenon, for which extensive experimental data are available. In this talk, we focus on a specific question: what sets the thrust of an ECR thruster? To address this question, we use the model to investigate how and where ions accelerate, how momentum is exchanged between species or transferred to walls, and how assumptions about charged-particle and neutral expansion affect thrust predictions. We compare, for xenon, predicted ion-velocity profiles and thrust with experimental measurements to see what the model reproduces and where discrepancies remain. |
| 15:40 | Semion Tchetovski, LOA | Laser wakefield acceleration guided by Bayesian optimization | i Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is a promising compact alternative to conventional radio-frequency-based particle accelerators. Indeed, the high electric field of an ultra-intense and ultrashort laser pulse, when focused into a gas, allows the formation of a plasma structure that exhibits an accelerating gradient up to four orders of magnitude higher than those achieved in conventional accelerators. With respect to practical applications, LWFA was however limited in terms of energy and repetition rate. Recently, those restrictions have been addressed, and LWFA is therefore reaching the maturity for high-performance facilities. Yet the final challenge consists of handling both the energy and repetition-rate requirements within the same structure. This is the role of the new Laser-Plasma Acceleration Center (LAPLACE), in which we look for applying machine learning technics to improve further acceleration behavior. Using Bayesian optimization, we report the principle over which LAPLACE would be guided in LWFA experiments. |
| 16:00 | Xue Wang, LPP | Plasma Transport and Energization at Mercury’s Low-Latitude Boundary Layer | |
| 16:20 | Poster and photo prizes announcement | ||