The Center for Relativistic Laser Science (CoReLS) was established in 2012 to explore novel physical phenomena occurring in the relativistic laser intensity regime.
The electron motion enters the relativistic regime at a laser intensity of 1018 W/cm2 and protons behave relativistically at 1024 W/cm2.
To tackle the underlying physics of relativistic laser-matter interactions, the center utilizes a 30-fs petawatt (PW) laser facility developed at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST).
It is a challenging task to reveal the physics of relativistic and ultra-relativistic laser-matter interactions. We examine the fundamental physical processes in atoms, molecules, plasmas and also subatomic entities occurring in an ultrafast time scale (atto- to zepto-second) and to develop high-energy ultra-short particle (electron, proton, and ion) beams and radiation (X-ray and γ-ray) sources.
For the pursuit of these challenging tasks CoReLS consists of the following research groups: Laser, Low-density laser plasma, High-density laser plasma, and Attosecond science.