Related papers: Dynamical Schwinger effect and high-intensity lase…
There are definite plans for the construction of X-ray free electron lasers (FEL), both at DESY, where the so-called XFEL is part of the design of the electron-positron linear collider TESLA, as well as at SLAC, where the so-called Linac…
It is a long-standing non-trivial prediction of quantum electrodynamics that its vacuum is unstable in the background of a static, spatially uniform electric field and, in principle, sparks with spontaneous emission of electron-positron…
In these lecture notes we give an introduction to the kinetic equation approach to pair production form the vacuum in strong, time-dependent external fields (dynamical Schwinger process). We first give a derivation of the kinetic equation…
We investigate electron-positron pair production from vacuum for short laser pulses with sub-cycle structure, in the nonperturbative regime (Schwinger pair production). We use the non-equilibrium quantum kinetic approach, and show that the…
In scalar QED we study the Schwinger pair production from an initial ensemble of charged bosons when an electric field is turned on for a finite period together with or without a constant magnetic field. The scalar QED Hamiltonian depends…
The scheme of simultaneous multiple pulse focusing on one spot naturally arises from the structural features of projected new laser systems, such as ELI and HiPER. It is shown that the multiple pulse configuration is beneficial for…
In this study we explore the possibility of using the process of electron-positron pair creation in strong laser fields as a tool for measuring the intensity of the corresponding laser radiation. In the initial state we consider either free…
Triggering vacuum breakdown at the upcoming laser facilities can provide rapid electron-positron pair production for studies in laboratory astrophysics and fundamental physics. However, the density of the emerging plasma should seemingly…
Reaching light intensities above $10^{25}$ W/cm$^{2}$ and up to the Schwinger limit ($10^{29}$ W/cm$^{2}$) would enable testing decades-old fundamental predictions of Quantum Electrodynamics. A promising yet challenging approach to achieve…
Prolific electron-positron pair production is possible at laser intensities approaching 10^{24} W/cm^2 at a wavelength of 1 micron. An analysis of electron trajectories and interactions at the nodes (B=0) of two counter-propagating,…
The radiation pressure of next generation ultra-high intensity ($>10^{23}$ W/cm$^{2}$) lasers could efficiently accelerate ions to GeV energies. However, nonlinear quantum-electrodynamic effects play an important role in the interaction of…
The cascaded production and dynamics of electron-positron plasma in ultimately focused laser fields of extreme intensity are studied by 3D particle-in-cell simulations with the account for the relevant processes of quantum electrodynamics…
The ability of an intense laser pulse to propagate in a classically over-critical plasma through the phenomenon of relativistic transparency is shown to facilitate the generation of strong plasma magnetic fields. Particle-in-cell…
We consider a system of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice as a quantum simulator for electron-positron pair production in quantum electrodynamics (QED). For a setup in one spatial dimension, we investigate the nonequilibrium phenomenon…
Based on an analysis of a specific electron trajectory in counter-propagating beams, Bell & Kirk (PRL 101, 200403 (2008)) recently suggested that laboratory lasers may shortly be able to produce significant numbers of electron-positron…
The mechanism of laser-driven relativistic pair-jet production qualitatively changes as laser intensity exceeds $I\gtrsim5\times10^{22}$ W/cm$^{2}$ because of the appearance of laser-induced strong-field QED processes. Here, we show that by…
Experimental efforts toward the detection of the nonperturbative strong-field regime of the Breit-Wheeler pair creation process plan to combine incoherent sources of GeV $\gamma$ quanta and the coherent fields of tightly focussed optical…
We consider the process of electron-positron pair production in the presence of strong electric backgrounds being rapidly switched on and off and examine the total particle yield. For sufficiently sharp field profiles, the particle number…
It is well known that in the presence of strong external electromagnetic fields many processes forbidden in standard QED become possible. One example is the one-photon annihilation process considered recently by the present authors in the…
At very high energies, pair production ($\gamma\to e^+e^-$) exhibits many interesting features. The momentum transfer from the target is very small, so the reaction probes the macroscopic properties of the target, rather than individual…