Yasuhiko Sentoku

Dr. Sentoku received his PhD from the Graduate School of Engineering at Osaka University in 1999. He had been a scientist at General Atomics (2002-2003) and a Professor at Physics Department of University of Nevada, Reno (2003-2016). Since 2016 he has been a professor at ILE, Osaka University, Japan. He is a theorist in laser-plasma physics and an expert of Particle-in-Cell (PIC) simulations. He developed the multi-dimensional PIC code, PICLS, which enables simulations of intense laser (or x-ray laser) – matter interactions including atomics physics i.e., collisions and ionizations, and radiation transport physics. The PICLS code has been used to simulate electron/ion acceleration, plasma formation, dense plasma heating, and x-ray/gamma-ray radiations. He has authored or co-authored over 300 journal papers which has been cited over 10,000 times (h-index 56). He received the Dr. Donald Mousel & Dr. William Feltner Award for Excellence in Research, College of Science, University of Nevada, Reno in 2009 and is a Fellow of American Physical Society since 2018.

LaserNetUS Affiliations:

• SimNet Committee Member

Featured Publications:

• K. Sugimoto, Y. He, N. Iwata, I-L. Yeh, K. Tangtartharakul, A. Arefiev, and Y. Sentoku, “Positron generation and acceleration in a self-organized photon collider enabled by an ultraintense laser pulse”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 131, 065102 (2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.065102
• N. Iwata, A. J. Kemp, S. C. Wilks, K. Mima, D. Mariscal, T. Ma, and Y. Sentoku, “Lateral confinement of fast electrons and its impact on laser ion acceleration”, Phys. Rev. Research 3, 023193 (2021). DOI: doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.3.023193
• Y. Sentoku, E. d’Humieres, L. Romagnani, P. Audebert, and J. Fuchs, “Dynamic Control over Mega-Ampere Electron Currents in Metals Using Ionization-Driven Resistive Magnetic Fields”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 135005 (2011). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.06510210.1103/PhysRevLett.107.135005
• Y. Sentoku and A. J. Kemp, “Numerical methods for particle simulations at extreme densities and temperatures: Weighted particles, relativistic collisions and reduced currents”, J. Comp. Phys. 227, 6846 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcp.2008.03.043
• Y. Sentoku, K. Mima, P. Kaw, and K. Nishikawa, “Anomalous resistivity resulting from MeV electron transport in overdense plasma”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 155001 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.90.155001