Senior Scientist
1 Cyclotron Road, MS 71-269
Berkeley CA 94720
telephone: 510-495-4934
JLVay@lbl.gov
Ph.D., Physics, Université Paris-7, Jussieu, Paris, France, 1996
M.S., Physics, Université Paris-7, Jussieu, Paris, France, 1992
Jean-Luc Vay is a Senior Physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and head of the Accelerator Modeling Program in LBNL’s Applied Physics and Accelerator Technologies Division. His research interests center on advanced modeling of particle accelerator physics and technology, especially for the development of novel accelerators, including high-energy physics colliders, laser plasma accelerators, light sources, and drivers for high energy density physics and heavy ion inertial fusion. A significant portion of his research involves the development of novel algorithms, their implementation in production codes and optimization on a multiplicity of platforms (from PC to supercomputers), the validation of these algorithms, and the application of the codes to the solution of practical accelerator physics problems. This work, and allied efforts of others at LBNL, are brought together as the Berkeley Lab Accelerator Simulation Toolkit (BLAST).
Vay is recipient of the 2013 US Particle Accelerator School Prize for Achievement in Accelerator Physics and Technology for original contributions to the development of novel methods for simulating particle beams, particularly the Lorentz boosted frame techniques, and for the successful application of these methods to multi-scale, multi-species problems. He also received the 2014 NERSC Award for Innovative Use of High Performance Computers for his work on “boosted frame” and novel spectral decomposition techniques.
Professional experience
2013-present: Physicist Senior Scientist, LBNL
2005-2013: Physicist Staff Scientist, LBNL
2000-2005: Physicist Scientist, LBNL
1998-2000: Term Scientist, LBNL
1996-1998: Postdoctoral Fellow, LBNL
Awards
- 2014: National Energy Research Supercomputing Center Award for Innovative Use of High Performance Computing
“To recognize extraordinary scientific achievement from NERSC users and to encourage the innovative use of High Performance Computing resources.” - 2013: U.S. Particle Accelerator School Prize for Achievement in Accelerator Physics and Technology
“For original contributions to the development of novel methods for simulating particle beams, particularly the Lorentz boosted frame techniques, and for the successful application of these methods to multi-scale, multi-species problems.”
Selected publications
J.-L. Vay, I. Haber and B.B. Godfrey, “A domain decomposition method for pseudo-spectral electromagnetic simulations of plasmas,” Journal of Computational Physics 243 (2013), pp. 260-268.
J.-L. Vay, C.G.R. Geddes, E. Cormier-Michel and D.P. Grote, “Design of 10 GeV-1 TeV laser wakefield accelerators using Lorentz boosted simulations,” Physics of Plasmas 18 (2011) 123103.
J.-L. Vay, C.G.R. Geddes, E. Cormier-Michel and D.P. Grote, “Effects of hyperbolic rotation in Minkowski space on the modeling of plasma accelerators in a Lorentz boosted frame,” Physics of Plasmas (letter) 18 (2011), 030701. See also the related LBNL and NERSC news releases and DOE Office of Science story.
J.-L. Vay, “Simulation of beams or plasmas crossing at relativistic velocity,” Physics of Plasmas 15 (2008) 056701; LBNL-63828.
J.-L. Vay, “Noninvariance of space- and time-scale ranges under a Lorentz transformation and the implications for the study of relativistic interactions,” Physical Review Letters 98 (2007), 130405. See also the related article, this LBNL feature story, and a DOE Office of Science Highlight.
