Related papers: Testing strong-field QED with the avalanche precur…
QED cascades are complex avalanche processes of hard photon emission and electron-positron pair creation driven by ultra-strong electromagnetic fields. They play a fundamental role in astrophysical environments such as a pulsars'…
The self-sustained or avalanche-type cascade is an intriguing prediction of strong-field quantum electrodynamics (QED) that has yet to be observed in laboratories. It is accompanied by the conversion of electromagnetic energy into gamma…
The QED cascade induced by the two counter-propagating lasers is studied. It is demonstrated that the probability of a seed-photon to create a pair is much larger than that of a seed-electron. By analyzing the dynamic characteristics of the…
Upcoming high-intensity laser systems will be able to probe the quantum-induced nonlinear regime of electrodynamics. So far unobserved QED phenomena such as the discovery of a nonlinear response of the quantum vacuum to macroscopic…
New laser facilities will reach intensities of $10^{23} \textrm{W cm}^{-2}$. This advance enables novel experimental setups in the study of laser-plasma interaction. In these setups with extreme fields quantum electrodynamic (QED) effects…
It was suggested [A. R. Bell & J. G. Kirk, PRL 101, 200403 (2008)] that an avalanche of electron-positron pairs can be triggered in the laboratory by a standing wave generated by intense laser fields. Here, we present a general solution to…
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…
Ongoing progress in laser and accelerator technology opens new possibilities in high-field science, notably to investigate the largely unexplored strong-field quantum electrodynamics (SFQED) regime where electron-positron pairs can be…
It is conjectured that all perturbative approaches to quantum electrodynamics (QED) break down in the collision of a high-energy electron beam with an intense laser, when the laser fields are boosted to `supercritical' strengths far greater…
The quantum electrodynamic (QED) theory predicts the photon emission and pair creation involved in QED cascades occur mainly in a forward cone with finite angular spread $\Delta\theta \sim 1/\gamma_{i}$ along the momenta of incoming…
A formula for the ionization rate in extremely intense electromagnetic field is proposed and used for numerical study of QED (quantum-electrodynamical) cascades in noble gases in the field of two counter-propagating laser pulses. It is…
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…
The Petawatt (PW) laser facility of the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator (BELLA) Center has recently commissioned its second laser pulse transport line. This new beamline can be operated in parallel with the first beamline and enables…
We investigate a single-laser scheme for reaching the strong-field QED regime based on direct laser acceleration (DLA) of electrons followed by their head-on collision with the same laser pulse reflected from an overdense foil. In this…
Although existing technology cannot yet directly produce fields at the Schwinger level, experimental facilities can already explore strong-field QED phenomena by taking advantage of the Lorentz boost of energetic electron beams. Recent…
Exploiting high-energy electron beams colliding into high-intensity laser pulses brings an opportunity to reach high values of the dimensionless rest-frame acceleration $\chi$ and thereby invoke processes described by strong-field quantum…
We present a short review of recent progress in studying QED effects of interaction of ultra-relativistic laser pulses with vacuum and $e^-e^+$ plasma. The development of laser technologies promises very rapid growth of laser intensities in…
Relativistic, polarized pair-photon fireballs are central to understand the microscopic energy transfer of high-energy astrophysical outflows, yet generating an overdense fireball in the laboratory, especially via an ultraintense laser,…
Colliding bunches of high-energy electrons with intense laser pulses provides a basis for studying strong-field QED processes enabled by high values of quantum non-linearity parameter $\chi$. Nevertheless, the signal deconvolution is…
Several high power laser facilities are reaching field strengths where leading order strong-field quantum electrodynamical (QED) processes can be measured in the non-perturbative regime for the first time. At very high, as yet unobtainable…