Pablo J. Bilbao
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pablojbilbao.com
Pablo J. Bilbao
@pablojbilbao.com
42 followers 78 following 19 posts
PhD in plasma physics
@oxfordphysics.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk
Alumnus:
@golp-ist.bsky.social @istecnico.bsky.social
@lancasteruni.bsky.social

pablojbilbao.com
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Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social
Our most recent paper is out on PNAS (www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... ) in the Oxford led collaboration where @golp-ist.bsky.social @istecnico.bsky.social plays a role on theory and simulations (with @pablojbilbao.com and Filipe C)
November 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM
pablojbilbao.com
New in PNAS: we recreated blazar pair cascades in the lab. Using CERN’s Super Proton Synchrotron, we produced dense electron–positron beams and sent them through plasma to test whether beam instabilities can disrupt them, they can’t.
@ox.ac.uk @cern.bsky.social @golp-ist.bsky.social
Suppression of pair beam instabilities in a laboratory analogue of blazar pair cascades | PNAS
The generation of dense electron–positron pair beams in the laboratory can enable direct tests of theoretical models of γ-ray bursts and active gal...
www.pnas.org
November 8, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
golp-ist.bsky.social
And thesis successfully defended with distinctions!

Congratulations 🎉

@istecnico.bsky.social
October 3, 2025 at 11:23 AM
pablojbilbao.com
Officially Dr. Pablo! Immensely grateful to everyone at @golp-ist.bsky.social and to all the colleagues I’ve had the chance to work with over these past years. This journey wouldn’t have been the same without you. I’m sad to leave GoLP, but excited for what’s next, more coming soon, stay tuned!!
September 12, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
golp-ist.bsky.social
Last week, a part of GoLP went to Vilnius (Lithuania 🇱🇹) for the 51st EPS Conference on Plasma Physics (🔗 epsplasma2025.com ), chaired by GoLP member Marija Vranic.

🔗 to know more: golp.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/.../golp-mem...
July 14, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
diogodcarvalho.bsky.social
1/n Back in Lisbon after 1 year at UCLA!

Want to start by thanking Fulbright, FCT, IIE, and UCLA for making this research visit possible and for all the support during the program.
May 7, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
golp-ist.bsky.social
In Science Advances, @pablojbilbao.com , @thales-silva.bsky.social , and @luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social show that radiatively cooled relativistic plasmas can spontaneously emit coherent, polarized radiation via the maser instability.

🔗 epp.ist.utl.pt?p=1530682
@istecnico.bsky.social
May 1, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
golp-ist.bsky.social
A recent cover article in PNAS by researchers from the University of @ox.ac.uk (Robert J E, Michael L N, Alexander A S) and GoLP/IPFN @istecnico.bsky.social (Pablo B, Thales S, Luís OS) revealed how collisionless plasmas reach equilibrium through turbulence.

🔗 tinyurl.com/y4xwx6cm
May 1, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social
Plasmas on the cover of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from a @oxfordphysics.bsky.social - @istecnico.bsky.social paper 🎉 with @thales-silva.bsky.social @pablojbilbao.com @golp-ist.bsky.social www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
April 29, 2025 at 3:45 PM
pablojbilbao.com
Our research is featured in Público, Portugal's national newspaper!
The article discusses how our latest study provides insights into the origin of coherent radio bursts from neutron stars, such as pulsars and magnetars.

www.publico.pt/2025/04/21/c...
April 21, 2025 at 12:12 PM
pablojbilbao.com
💥 New paper out in Science Advances!
We show that radiatively cooled relativistic plasmas can spontaneously emit coherent, polarized radiation via a maser instability.
Work with @thales-silva.bsky.social and @luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social .
🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Radiative cooling induced coherent maser emission in relativistic plasmas
Strongly magnetized relativistic plasmas spontaneously amplify coherent radiation, offering insights into astronomical signatures.
www.science.org
April 21, 2025 at 12:10 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social
Can plasma physics help constrain models for dark electromagnetism? Yes, it can. Letter in PhysRev D (Editor’s Suggestion) and a very nice feature in @physicsmagazine.bsky.social physics.aps.org/articles/v18... @golp-ist.bsky.social with Nitin S and Kevin S
Intergalactic Collision Constrains Dark Electromagnetism
The distribution of dark matter around a pair of colliding galaxy clusters appears unaffected by a putative dark-sector version of electromagnetism.
physics.aps.org
April 17, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
golp-ist.bsky.social
GoLP secures over 80 million CPU hours in national computing time. To know more about the projects👇

🔗 golp.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/wp/golp-secu...

@istecnico.bsky.social

Image: phase space of the maser instability. 🍭
April 10, 2025 at 3:04 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
daniellebeckman.bsky.social
I spend my days in the microscope quantifying things like the images below. These photos show neurons 🔵 and microglia 🟣 (brain immune cells). Each #SARSCoV2 infected cell entering the brain generates this response in our Covid monkey model. #FluorescenceSaturday
#NeuroCovid
April 5, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social
EXCLUSIVE: NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with Trump’s orders | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
EXCLUSIVE: NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with Trump’s orders
Grantee accounts remain frozen, while union accuses NSF of ignoring rules governing peer review
www.science.org
February 1, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social
Happy Holidays from everyone @golp-ist.bsky.social !
December 24, 2024 at 2:37 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
thales-silva.bsky.social
Here is an illustration of the setup in our latest pre-print [https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06783].
For more details, @pablojbilbao.com did an excellent post about it (check the thread: bsky.app/profile/pabl...). @luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social @golp-ist.bsky.social @istecnico.bsky.social
December 11, 2024 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
spavel.bsky.social
Well this is grim
weird interaction with a student this week. they kept coming up with weird "facts" ("greek is actually a combination of four other languages") that left me baffled. i said let's look this stuff up together, and they said ok, i'll open a search bar, and they opened... ch*tgpt and i was like "this is not a search bar" and they were like "yes it is, you can search for anything in here" the thing that made me feel crazy is like. every kid that's using this as a browser is getting new BESPOKE false "facts." this isn't "a widespread misconception about X that stems from how it's taught in schools." each individual kid is now hooked into a Nonsense Machine with the "widespread misconception about X" you can start at a baseline. like, ok, in tenth grade we all talk about X thing from history, and that leaves us with some misguided concepts about X, but we can correct that as students get broader understandings of the world but with this, each child is getting UNIQUE wrong facts they are SURE are correct... because they did what we told them to do! they "looked it up"! they got it from somewhere! it's not a kid making up a belief on hearsay and assumption... it's something they think they LEARNED this kid was extremely combative with me, and i understood why. i was sitting in front of him and telling him that the internet, a computer, technology, all these supposedly authoritative things... were wrong. and that i, one person, was right. he basically *couldn't* believe me. 8 135 3.8K 97K ... stillorangecrushed @stilloranged. 7h he decided that i was simply a teacher who'd made a mistake. he could check it, after all! he could look it up! he could find the REAL facts. i obviously hadn't done that, i was just an adult who'd decided i was smarter than him. hence the defensiveness. like i said: i understood 5 760 3.2K 82K stillorangecrushed @stilloranged. 7h ... it was so fucking rough. i did my best, but i am one person trying to work against a campaign of misinformation so vast that it fucking terrifies me. this kid is being set up for a life lived entirely inside the hall of mirrors
July 6, 2024 at 10:15 PM
pablojbilbao.com
1/ Latest pre-print by @thales-silva.bsky.social & @luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social is out!
📝 Check out the full paper: arxiv.org/abs/2412.06783
The electron cyclotron maser instability in laser-ionized plasmas
We show that circularly polarized lasers create plasmas with long-lasting ring-shaped weakly relativistic momentum distributions which, in the presence of an ambient magnetic field, are prone to the e...
arxiv.org
December 10, 2024 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
luisoliveiraesilva.bsky.social
New @golp-ist.bsky.social preprint is out, by @thales-silva.bsky.social @pablojbilbao.com - tailoring distribution functions with lasers and exploring, in the lab, astro relevant plasma instabilities 👇 arxiv.org/abs/2412.06783
The electron cyclotron maser instability in laser-ionized plasmas
We show that circularly polarized lasers create plasmas with long-lasting ring-shaped weakly relativistic momentum distributions which, in the presence of an ambient magnetic field, are prone to the e...
arxiv.org
December 10, 2024 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
golp-ist.bsky.social
Starting the GoLP Raising the Bar day 2024 with breakfast in the beautiful building of Academia das ciências followed by a presentation and an open discussion.

@istecnico.bsky.social
December 6, 2024 at 10:18 AM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
istecnico.bsky.social
Marija Vranic, professor at Técnico, and PhD student Óscar Amaro are part of the team that published (and earned cover honors) a recent study in Nature Photonics that show, for the 1st time, observations of non-linear Compton scattering.☄️

🔗Full article: tinyurl.com/4h4yuzf4

#TécnicoLisboa #ULisboa
Nature Photonics: Cientistas do Técnico colaboram na primeira observação de novo efeito físico
Resultados publicados confirmam fenómeno físico conhecido como dispersão de Compton não linear e têm um grande potencial para aplicações em estudos de física nuclear, produção de antimatéria, e até em...
tinyurl.com
November 29, 2024 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
linigoga.bsky.social
We have also submitted a preprint on applying Quantum variational algorithms to Strong Field QED. We demonstrate that we can use VarQITE to evolve the Fokker-Planck equation to simulate Quantum Radiation Reaction.

arxiv.org/abs/2411.175...
Variational Quantum Simulation of the Fokker-Planck Equation applied to Quantum Radiation Reaction
Near-future experiments with Petawatt class lasers are expected to produce a high flux of gamma-ray photons and electron-positron pairs through Strong Field Quantum Electrodynamical processes. Simulat...
arxiv.org
November 27, 2024 at 10:06 AM
Reposted by Pablo J. Bilbao
linigoga.bsky.social
Today's an exciting day! We have submitted two papers to ArXiV, one of which is my positron acceleration work using Direct Laser Acceleration. Here, we use methods to improve positron creation and retention and a semi-analytical model to predict laser depletion. arxiv.org/abs/2411.174...
Improved Bethe-Heitler positron creation and retention by combining direct laser acceleration and solid target interaction within a gas jet
The next generation of Petawatt-class lasers presents the opportunity to study positron production and acceleration experimentally, in an all-optical setting. Several configurations were proposed to p...
arxiv.org
November 27, 2024 at 10:03 AM