Efficiency-optimized relativistic plasma harmonics for extreme fields

Nature Nature Research (2026)

Authors:

Robin TIMMIS, Colm RJ Fitzpatrick, Jonathan P Kennedy, Holly M Huddleston, Elliott Denis, Abigail James, Chris Baird, Dan Symes, David McGonegle, Eduard Atonga, Heath Martin, Jeremy Rebenstock, John Neely, Jordan John Lee, Joshua Redfern, Nicolas Bourgeois, Oliver Finlay, Rusko Ruskov, Sam Astbury, Steve Hawkes, Zixin Zhang, Matt Zepf, Karl Krushelnick, Edward Gumbrell, Rajeev Paramel Pattathil, Mark Yeung, Brendan Dromey, PETER NORREYS

Data-efficient learning of exchange-correlation functionals with differentiable DFT

Machine Learning: Science and Technology IOP Publishing 7:2 (2026) 025001-025001

Authors:

Antonius von Strachwitz, Karim K Alaa El-Din, Ana CC Dutra, Sam M Vinko

Abstract:

Abstract Machine learning (ML) density functional approximations (DFAs) have seen a lot of interest in recent years, often being touted as the replacement for well-established non-empirical DFAs, which still dominate the field. Although highly accurate, ML-DFAs typically rely on large amounts of data, are computationally expensive, and fail to generalize beyond their training domain. In this work we show that differentiable DFT with Kohn鈥揝ham regularization can be used to accurately capture the behavior of known local density approximations from small sets of synthetic data without using localized density information. At the same time our analysis shows a strong dependence of the learning on both the amount and type of data as well as on model initialization. By enabling accurate learning from sparse energy data, this approach paves the way towards the development of custom ML-DFAs trained directly on limited experimental or high-level quantum chemistry datasets.

Probing keV mass QCD axions with the SACLA X-ray free electron laser

(2026)

Authors:

Charles Heaton, Jack WD Halliday, Taito Osaka, Ichiro Inoue, Sifei Zhang, Ahmed Alsulami, Joshua TY Chu, Mila Fitzgerald, Takaki Hatsui, Motoaki Nakatsutsumi, Haruki Nishino, Atsushi O Tokiyasu, Robert Bingham, Subir Sarkar, Gianluca Gregori

Modeling partially ionized dense plasma using wavepacket molecular dynamics

Physical Review E American Physical Society (APS) (2026)

Measurement of ion acceleration and diffusion in a laser-driven magnetized plasma

Nature Communications Nature Research (2026)

Authors:

JTY Chu, JWD Halliday, C Heaton, K Moczulski, A Blazevic, D Schumacher, M Metternich, H Nazary, CD Arrowsmith, AR Bell, KA Beyer, AFA Bott, T Campbell, E Hansen, DQ Lamb, F Miniati, P Neumayer, CAJ Palmer, B Reville, A Reyes, S Sarkar, A Scopatz, C Spindloe, CB Stuart, H Wen, P Tzeferacos, R Bingham, G Gregori

Abstract:

Here we present results from an experiment performed at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research. A mono-energetic beam of chromium ions with initial energies of 聽~聽450 MeV was fired through a magnetized interaction region formed by the collision of two counter-propagating laser-ablated plasma jets. While laser interferometry revealed the absence of strong fluid-scale turbulence, acceleration and diffusion of the beam ions was driven by wave-particle interactions. A possible mechanism is particle acceleration by electrostatic, short scale length kinetic turbulence, such as the lower-hybrid drift instability.