Related papers: Field-assisted birefringent Compton scattering
Motivated by recent experimental initiatives, such as at the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (HIBEF) at the European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL), we calculate the birefringent scattering of x-rays at the combined…
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…
Compton scattering is the nonresonant inelastic scattering of an x-ray photon by an electron and has been used to probe the electron momentum distribution in gas-phase and condensed-matter samples. In the low x-ray intensity regime, Compton…
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 the scattering of an x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) beam on the superposition of a strong magnetic field $\bf{B}_{\rm ext}$ with the Coulomb field $\bf{E}_{\rm ext}$ of a nucleus with charge number $Z$. In contrast to pure…
Photons preferentially Compton scatter perpendicular to the plane of polarisation. This property can be exploited to design instruments to measure the linear polarisation of hard X-rays ($\sim$10 - 100 keV). Photons may undergo two…
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…
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…
An experiment for the advanced undergraduate laboratory allowing students to directly observe the effect of photon polarisation on Compton scattering is described. An initially unpolarised beam of photons is polarised via Compton scattering…
Recent investigations by Fuchs et al. [Nat. Phys. 11, 964 (2015)] revealed an anomalous frequency shift in non-linear Compton scattering of high-intensity X-rays by electrons in solid beryllium. This frequency shift was at least 800 eV to…
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…
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…
We present a theoretical study of Compton scattering of X- and $\gamma$-rays by a $K$-shell electron. Special attention is paid to the double-differential cross section and polarization of the scattered photons for linearly polarized…
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…
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…
X-ray scattering is a weak linear probe of matter. It is primarily sensitive to the position of electrons and their momentum distribution. Elastic X-ray scattering forms the basis of atomic structural determination while inelastic Compton…
It is well-known that the Heisenberg-Euler-Schwinger effective Lagrangian predicts that a vacuum with a strong static electromagnetic field turns birefringent. We propose a scheme that can be implemented at the planned FCC-ee, to measure…
Compton scattering is one of the cornerstones of quantum physics, describing the fundamental interaction of a charged particle with photons. The Compton effect and its inverse are utilized in experiments driving free electrons by high…
In the presence of strong magnetic fields, the vacuum becomes a birefringent medium. We show that this QED effect couples the direction of the polarization of photons leaving the NS surface, to the direction of the magnetic field along the…
We suggest an experiment to observe vacuum birefringence induced by intense laser fields. A high-intensity laser pulse is focused to ultra-relativistic intensity and polarizes the vacuum which then acts like a birefringent medium. The…