Related papers: Quantum vacuum signatures in multi-color laser pul…
The fundamental theory of quantum electrodynamics predicts the vacuum to resemble a polarizable medium. This gives rise to effective nonlinear interactions between electromagnetic fields and light-by-light scattering phenomena. We study the…
These notes provide a pedagogical introduction to the theoretical study of vacuum polarization effects in strong electromagnetic fields as provided by state-of-the-art high-intensity lasers. Quantum vacuum fluctuations give rise to…
We study all-optical signatures of the effective nonlinear couplings among electromagnetic fields in the quantum vacuum, using the collision of two focused high-intensity laser pulses as an example. The experimental signatures of quantum…
We show that coherent harmonic focusing provides an efficient mechanism to boost all-optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearity in the collision of high-intensity laser fields, thereby offering a promising route to their first…
The tremendous progress in high-intensity laser technology and the establishment of dedicated high-field laboratories in recent years have paved the way towards a first observation of quantum vacuum nonlinearities at the high-intensity…
We demonstrate that tailored laser beams provide a powerful means to make quantum vacuum signatures in strong electromagnetic fields accessible in experiment. Typical scenarios aiming at the detection of quantum vacuum nonlinearities at the…
Our goal is to study optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearities in strong macroscopic electromagnetic fields provided by high-intensity laser beams. The vacuum emission scheme is perfectly suited for this task as it naturally…
Laser pulse collisions are a promising tool for the investigation of light-by-light scattering phenomena induced by quantum vacuum fluctuations. Using the numerical code based on the vacuum emission picture and put forward in Blinne et al.…
Up to date, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the most precisely tested quantum field theory. Nevertheless, particularly in the high-intensity regime it predicts various phenomena that so far have not directly been accessible in all-optical…
Quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field result in two signatures on a harmonically trapped charged particle: a shift from the natural trap frequency and generation of quantum coherences. We assess the role of the…
The classical or quantum nature of optical spectroscopy signals is a topic that has attracted great attention recently. Spectroscopic techniques have been classified as quantum or classical depending on the light-source used in their…
Studies of nonlinear quantum vacuum signals often model the driving laser fields as paraxial beams. This in particular holds for analytic approaches. While this allows for reliable predictions in most situations, there are also notable…
Quasi-elastic scattering processes have long been thought of providing the most promising signal for a first experimental detection of quantum vacuum nonlinearity. A prominent example of such a process is vacuum birefringence. However,…
All-optical experiments at the high-intensity frontier offer a promising route to unprecedented precision tests of quantum electrodynamics in strong macroscopic electromagnetic fields. So far, most theoretical studies of all-optical…
The advent of Petawatt-class laser systems allows generating electro-magnetic fields of unprecedented strength in a controlled environment, driving increasingly more efforts to probe yet unobserved processes through their interaction with…
We study the nonlinear QED signature of x-ray vacuum diffraction in the head-on collision of optical high-intensity and x-ray free-electron laser pulses at finite spatio-temporal offsets between the laser foci. The high-intensity laser…
The invention of laser immediately enabled us to detect nonlinearities of photon interaction in matter, as manifested for example by Franken et al.'s detection of second harmonic generation and the excitation of the Brillouin forward…
Vacuum fluctuations give rise to effective nonlinear interactions between electromagnetic fields. These generically modify the characteristics of light traversing a strong-field region. X-ray free-electron lasers constitute a particularly…
The dynamics of an electronic Dirac wave packet evolving under the influence of an ultra-intense laser pulse and an ensemble of highly charged ions is investigated numerically. Special emphasis is placed on the evolution of quantum…
The quantum electrodynamical vacuum polarization effects arising in the collision of a high-energy proton beam and a strong, linearly polarized laser field are investigated. The probability that laser photons merge into one photon by…