Related papers: Quantum vacuum processes in the extremely intense …
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…
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…
In this letter, we report Doppler harmonic generation with a relativistic plasma mirror at unprecedented intensities $>10^{21} ~\textrm{W/cm}^2$ using a PetaWatt-class laser. We show that beyond a few $10^{21} ~\textrm{W/cm}^2$ a precise…
In this letter, cutting-edge 3D Particle-In-Cell simulations are used to demonstrate that so-called relativistic plasma mirrors irradiated by PetaWatt (PW) lasers and naturally curved by laser radiation pressure can be used to tightly focus…
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…
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…
Intense spatial or spatiotemporal vortex pulses from the extreme ultraviolet to soft X-ray spectral windows are expected to provide new degrees of freedom for a variety of key applications since they carry longitudinal or transverse orbital…
A new parameter regime of laser wakefield acceleration driven by sub-petawatt femotsecond lasers is proposed, which enables the generation of relativistic electron mirrors further accelerated by the plasma wave. Integrated particle-in-cell…
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…
Quantum vacuum fluctuations give rise to effective non-linear interactions between electromagnetic fields. A prominent signature of quantum vacuum nonlinearities driven by macroscopic fields are signal photons differing in characteristic…
High power short pulse lasers provide a promising route to study the strong field effects of the quantum vacuum, for example by direct photon-photon scattering in the all-optical regime. Theoretical predictions based on realistic laser…
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…
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…
High-order harmonic generation via single-slit diffraction of relativistic laser pulses is investigated. Using fully kinetic 2D and 3D particle-in-cell simulations, we show that interesting optical phenomena emerge, including the generation…
Vector beam, with a spatial nonuniform polarization distribution, is important for many applications due to its unique field characteristics and novel effects when interacting with matter. Here through three-dimensional particle-in-cell…
Converting light into matter has been a longstanding goal in physics, particularly the creation of electron-positron pairs through quantum electrodynamic (QED) processes. While current approaches using multiple colliding laser pulses can…
We show that a laser beam can be diffracted by a more concentrated light pulse due to quantum vacuum effects. We compute analytically the intensity pattern in a realistic experimental configuration, and discuss how it can be used to measure…
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…
We consider the possibility of an experimental proof of vacuum e+e- pair creation in the focus of two counter-propagating optical laser beams with an intensity of the order of 10^20 - 10^22 W/cm^2. Our approach is based on the collisionless…
This work focuses on the incoherent and coherent combination of pulsed laser beams, building on previous research [1] that addressed the combination of continuous-wave laser beams. For the pulsed combination, we have focused on the temporal…