Related papers: A Cubic Micron of Equilibrium Pair Plasma?
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…
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…
Extreme laser pulses driving non-equilibrium processes in high density plasmas permit an increase of the fusion of hydrogen with the boron isotope 11 by nine orders of magnitude of the energy gains above the classical values. This is the…
Electromagnetic showers from high-energy electron beams interacting with a target are a promising path to creating pair plasmas in the laboratory. Here, we solve analytically the kinetic equations describing this process. Two regimes are…
Prolific electron-positron pair production is possible at laser intensities approaching 10^{24} W/cm^2 at a wavelength of 1 micron. An analysis of electron trajectories and interactions at the nodes (B=0) of two counter-propagating,…
Electron-positron pair creation in a standing wave is explored using a parameter-free quantum kinetic equation. Field strengths and frequencies corresponding to modern optical lasers induce a material polarisation of the QED vacuum, which…
The radiation pressure of next generation ultra-high intensity ($>10^{23}$ W/cm$^{2}$) lasers could efficiently accelerate ions to GeV energies. However, nonlinear quantum-electrodynamic effects play an important role in the interaction of…
In simulations of a 12.5PW laser (focused intensity I = 4x10^23W/cm^2) striking a solid aluminium target 10% of the laser energy is converted to gamma-rays. A dense electron-positron plasma is generated with a maximum density of 10^26/m^3;…
In simulations of a 10PW laser striking a solid we demonstrate the possibility of producing a pure electron-positron plasma by the same processes as those thought to operate in high-energy astrophysical environments. A maximum positron…
QED-effects are known to occur in a strong laser pulse interaction with a counter-propagating electron beam, among these effects being electron-positron pair creation. We discuss the range of laser pulse intensities of J > 5*10^22 W/cm2…
Understanding the interplay of strong-field QED and collective plasma effects is important for explaining extreme astrophysical environments like magnetars. It has been shown that QED pair plasmas is possible to be produced and observed by…
We consider pair creation by collision of a couple of counterpropagating electromagnetic pulses with arbitrary frequency ratio, mostly in the context of setup with collision of optical and coherent hard X- (or gamma-) ray pulses. This…
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…
Recently much attention has being attracted to the problem of limitations on the attainable intensity of high power lasers [A.M. Fedotov {\it et al.} Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{105}, 080402 (2010)]. The laser energy can be absorbed by…
Using a quantum kinetic equation coupled to Maxwell's equation we study the possibility that focused beams at proposed X-ray free electron laser facilities can generate electric field strengths large enough to cause spontaneous…
Active energy compression scheme is presently being investigated for future laser-plasma accelerators. This method enables generating laser-plasma accelerator electron beams with a small, $\sim 10^{-5}$, relative slice energy spread. When…
Creation of electrons and positrons from light alone is a basic prediction of quantum electrodynamics, but yet to be observed. Here we show that it is possible to create ${>}10^8$ positrons by dual laser irradiation of a structured plasma…
The hypothetical axion and axion-like particles, feebly coupled with photon, have not yet been found in any experiment. With the improvement of laser technique, much stronger but shorter quasi-static electric and magnetic fields can be…
The possibility to observe vacuum electron-positron pair creation due to a powerful optical laser pulse is discussed. We employ a quantum kinetic formulation of the problem with a source term describing the vacuum pair production in a…
The ability of an intense laser pulse to propagate in a classically over-critical plasma through the phenomenon of relativistic transparency is shown to facilitate the generation of strong plasma magnetic fields. Particle-in-cell…