Related papers: Super light-by-light scattering in vacuum induced …
When exposed to intense electromagnetic fields, the quantum vacuum is expected to exhibit properties of a polarisable medium akin to a weakly nonlinear dielectric material. Various schemes have been proposed to measure such vacuum…
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…
The laser of an intense electromagnetic field provides an important tool to study the strong-field particle physics. The nonlinear Compton scattering was observed in the collision of an ultra-relativistic electron beam with a laser pulse in…
We propose a novel technique that promises hope of being the first to directly detect a polarization in the quantum electrodynamic (QED) vacuum. The technique is based upon the use of ultra-short pulses of light circulating in low…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Nonlinear Compton scattering driven by ultraintense lasers presents a promising avenue for enhancing the photon energy, brilliance, and setup compactness of $\gamma$-ray sources. However, a significant challenge lies in achieving a high…
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…
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 spontaneous emergence of vector vortex beams with non-uniform polarization distribution is reported in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with frequency-selective feedback. Antivortices with a hyperbolic polarization…
The phenomenon of electron-laser vacuum breakdown is the multiple cascade production of electron-positron pairs in head-on collision of a beam of relativistic electrons with an intense laser pulse. This effect was first predicted by the…
Vacuum birefringence (VB) is a basic phenomenon predicted in quantum electrodynamics (QED). However, due to the smallness of the signal, conventional magnet-based and extremely intense laser-driven detection methods are still very…
The quantum vacuum shows an intensity-dependent nonlinear index of refraction. Consequently, we may consider vacuum as a non-linear medium enabling, at sufficiently high field strengths, a direct interaction of light with light. In this…
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,…
The PVLAS collaboration has observed rotation of the plane of polarization of light passing through a magnetic field in vacuum and has proposed that the effect is due to interaction of photons with very light spin-zero bosons. This would…
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 x-ray photon scattering in the head-on collision of an XFEL pulse and a focused high-intensity laser pulse, described as paraxial Laguerre-Gaussian beam of arbitrary mode composition. For adequately chosen relative orientations of…
Vacuum polarization is numerically investigated for the interaction between a GeV electron beam and a counterpropagating ultraintense laser pulse in the quantum radiation dominated-regime (QRDR). We identify a signal of vacuum polarization…