Related papers: Detection schemes for quantum vacuum diffraction a…
We study the perspectives of measuring the phenomenon of vacuum birefringence predicted by quantum electrodynamics using an x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) alone. We devise an experimental scheme allowing the XFEL beam to collide with…
We study vacuum birefringence and x-ray photon scattering in the head-on collision of x-ray free electron and high-intensity laser pulses. Resorting to analytical approximations for the numbers of attainable signal photons, we analyze the…
Birefringence is one of the fascinating properties of the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in strong electromagnetic fields. The scattering of linearly polarized incident probe photons into a perpendicularly polarized mode provides a…
We consider birefringent (i.e., polarization changing) scattering of x-ray photons at the superposition of two optical laser beams of ultra-high intensity and study the resonant contributions of axions or axion-like particles, which could…
The focus of this article is on providing compact analytical expressions for the differential number of polarization flipped signal photons constituting the signal of vacuum birefringence in the head-on collision of x-ray free electron…
Real photon-photon scattering is a long-predicted phenomenon that is being searched for in experiment in the form of a birefringent vacuum at optical and X-ray frequencies. We present results of calculations and numerical simulations for a…
Vacuum birefringence is one of the most striking predictions of strong field quantum electrodynamics: Probe photons traversing a strong field region can indirectly sense the applied "pump" electromagnetic field via quantum fluctuations of…
Motivated by experimental initiatives such as the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (HIBEF), we study Compton scattering of x-rays at electrons in a strong external field (e.g., a strong optical laser) with special…
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…
Quantum field theory predicts a nonlinear response of the vacuum to strong electromagnetic fields of macroscopic extent. This fundamental tenet has remained experimentally challenging and is yet to be tested in the laboratory. A…
Probing vacuum structures deformed by high intense fields is of great interest in general. In the context of quantum electrodynamics (QED), the vacuum exposed by a linearly polarized high-intensity laser field is expected to show…
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…
A nonlinear interaction between photons is observed in a process that involves charge sources. To observe this process in a vacuum, there are a growing number of theoretical and experimental studies. This process may contain exotic…
Vacuum birefringence (VB), a fundamental prediction of nonlinear quantum electrodynamics (QED), has eluded direct laboratory detection due to its extreme weakness. We propose a compact, "self-probing" scheme where a GeV electron beam…
In vacuum high-intensity lasers can cause photon-photon interaction via the process of virtual vacuum polarization which may be measured by the phase velocity shift of photons across intense fields. In the optical frequency domain, the…
In this paper we propose an all-optical vacuum birefringence experiment and evaluate its feasibility for various scenarios. Many petawatt-class lasers became operational and many more are expected to enter operation in the near future,…
A long-standing prediction of quantum electrodynamics, yet to be experimentally observed, is the interaction between real photons in vacuum. As a consequence of this interaction, the vacuum is expected to become birefringent and dichroic if…
Vacuum birefringence produces a differential phase between orthogonally polarized components of a weak electromagnetic probe in the presence of a strong electromagnetic field. Despite representing a hallmark prediction of quantum…
Ninety years after their prediction, quantum vacuum nonlinearities in macroscopic electromagnetic fields still await a direct experimental verification in the laboratory. A particularly promising route towards their first measurement is the…
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…