Speaker: Chris Brady

The next generation of high-power lasers requires a step change in how laser-plasmas are modelled. Rather than being a fundamentally classical science based on Maxwell's equations and Newton's laws of motion, additional QED processes must be included. The most important process for impending laser systems (such as the EU funded Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project) is inverse Compton scattering. The interaction of this effect with classical plasma physics leads to an interesting, novel type of plasma called a QED-plasma. This has properties different from both classical plasma physics and the simple single particle models conventional to QED studies. In this talk a background and motivation to the field is presented followed by an overview of the modelling techniques employed. Finally a few of the first results showing the interesting new properties of the QED-plasma regime will be presented.