Prof Stuart Mangles

@NikoSarcevic If you get chance go and see the US’s most powerful laser, ZEUS. zeus.engin.umich.edu

Safely in Ann Arbor! I’m giving a talk today and I just arrived and it’s almost 1:30 am Happy to be here but send strength because this woman is tired af

These sort of experiments will be even better when we combine X rays from a laser wakefield accelerator and shock shocks from a long pulse laser on #vulcan2020

We used the Vulcan laser @CLF_STFC to shock compress and heat matter to 5 times higher than solid density and over 50 000 degrees and observed how nearby plasma affects the electronic structure of the ions.

Using X ray absorption spectroscopy we can explore how matter behaves under extreme conditions, like those found inside gas giant planets. New paper by Dave Riley’s group @QUBelfast with @bkettle and Rory Baggott from my group @DoP_Imperial. mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/a…

@johnmdudley The atto prize uses light to make ultra short flashes of x-rays. Can it go in both?

Yes I know the categories are imperfect and overlap but anyway, as of the evening of 3/10/2023, here is the updated physics-related Nobel prize Timeline Chart

@spencer_jolly It was, salmon if I recall correctly, though to be honest I can’t be sure if it was Anne or Claes-Göran who cooked!

@plasmaStu Was it good? :)

Last year I realised I’d had dinner with one of the winners of the physics Nobel prize (Alain Aspect). This year I can go one further and say I’ve been cooked dinner by a Nobel prize winner (Anne L’Hullier)! Congratulations Anne🎉

Looking forward to welcoming all the new first year physicists to Imperial @DoP_Imperial this morning! And the new PhD students to our Physics of the Natural Environment Community!

🌌 Exciting News! I'm now the Head of the new Physics of the Natural Environment Community @DoP_Imperial, exploring plasmas, atmospheres, and solar science. From fusion energy and plasma accelerators to climate and space weather, a thrilling scientific journey awaits! 🚀

@_Jack_Halliday @professor_dave @ZivaVM I’m not disagreeing-but the level of difference depends a lot on where in the UK and the US

At this department in the USA, postdocs can start on $91k - £71k in UK money. This is the starting salary for a full Professorship in my own university, for which you will already have spent 2-10 years on much lower salaries as postdoc and 5-20 years as lecturer/senior lecturer.

Good bye Vulcan - see you again in 5 years!

@professor_dave @ZivaVM Is it true that costs are similar? That hasn’t been my impression talking to colleagues in the states. This website claims to directly compare costs in different cities (but doesn’t look like it includes health insurance) and has York nearly 25% less expensive than Dallas.

@ZivaVM Agreed cost of living matters. That's why the US comparison is interesting as US and UK have quite similar costs of living.

Looking for an exciting new career opportunity? Our flagship laser, Vulcan, is about to go through a major upgrade that will increase its power to 20 PW and its energy to 20 kJ! We are currently hiring for a range of roles, with more yet to come👩‍🔧🧑‍🔬👩‍💻 ➡️ tinyurl.com/Vulcan20-20jobs

A fun day today investigating Faraday’s law with 32 A level students with @blackettlabfam Sorry, no picture as I was too busy!!

@j_bertolotti And they need watering pretty regularly. In international and national league games they normally water the pitch before the start and at half time. So unless it rained very recently it could still need watering.

@j_bertolotti My love of physics and hockey collide! Hockey pitches use a very short, dense artificial turf to give a faster and more accurate roll. Water lubricates the fibres to stop the ball catching. Waterbased turf also produces far fewer graze injuries unlike sandbased ones.

Today I’m ⁦@CLF_STFC⁩ for the ⁦Culham Plasma Physics Summer School. Explaining that plasmas are not just good for fusion!

@AdrianLaMoury This is not an exam you need to prepare for! You have spent the last 3-4 years preparing for it and will be the expert in the room. Do make sure you can summarise why your work is interesting - often the first question! You could also read the thesis and check for recent pubs.

Question for PhD folk: how did you prepare for your viva? Mine is in two weeks!

Congratulations to Dr Eva Los on her successful PhD viva for work on Radiation Reaction in strong electromagnetic fields! (sorry Eva I can’t find you to @ you)

This was work Robbie did during his PhD here @DoP_Imperial. Robbie is now @SLAClab working on applications of machine learning in particle accelerators

New paper alert! Robbie Watt’s paper on how he’s modified Geant4 to enable us to study photon-photon collisions using laser-plasma gamma and x-ray sources (with some neat machine learning to speed up the calculations) doi.org/10.1103/PhysRe…