High-Energy Vacuum Birefringence and Dichroism in an Ultrastrong Laser Field

Bragin, Sergey; Meuren, Sebastian; Keitel, Christoph H.; Piazza, A. Di

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.119.250403

Cited by 88 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…A prominent nonlinear QED signature characterized by two signal photons in the final state is photon splitting [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. On the other hand, prospective optical signatures such as vacuum birefringence [26,28,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48], quantum reflection [49,50], photon merging [51][52][53][54], generic photon scattering phenomena [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67], and higher-harmonic generation [8,[68][69][70][71][7...…”

Section: Classical Derivation Of the Differential Signal Photon Numbermentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing Vacuum Polarization Effects with High-Intensity Lasers

Karbstein

2020

Particles

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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 effective couplings between electromagnetic fields, thereby supplementing Maxwell's linear theory of classical electrodynamics with nonlinearities. Resorting to a simplified laser pulse model allowing for explicit analytical insights, we demonstrate how to efficiently analyze all-optical signatures of these effective interactions in high-intensity laser experiments. Moreover, we highlight several key features relevant for the accurate planning and quantitative theoretical analysis of quantum vacuum nonlinearities in the collision of high-intensity laser pulses.

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Section: Classical Derivation Of the Differential Signal Photon Numbermentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing Vacuum Polarization Effects with High-Intensity Lasers

Karbstein

2020

Particles

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“…Recently, several proposals have been put forward to detect vacuum birefringence in ultrastrong laser fields, probing it with circularly-polarized (CP) or lineraly-polarized (LP) γ-photons of high-energies (larger than MeV and up to several GeV), see [10][11][12][13][14], taking advantage of the fact that the QED vacuum nonlinearity is significantly enhanced for high-energy photons. As proved in [14], the use of CP rather than LP probe photons reduces the measurement time of vacuum birefringence and vacuum dichroism by two orders of magnitude.…”

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confidence: 99%

Polarized Ultrashort Brilliant Multi-GeV γ Rays via Single-Shot Laser-Electron Interaction

Shaisultanov

Chen

et al. 2020

Phys. Rev. Lett.

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Generation of circularly-polarized (CP) and linearly-polarized (LP) γ-rays via the single-shot interaction of an ultraintense laser pulse with a spin-polarized counterpropagating ultrarelativistic electron beam has been investigated in nonlinear Compton scattering in the quantum radiation-dominated regime. For the process simulation a Monte Carlo method is developed which employs the electron-spin-resolved probabilities for polarized photon emissions. We show efficient ways for the transfer of the electron polarization to the high-energy photon polarization. In particular, multi-GeV CP (LP) γ-rays with polarization of up to about 90% (95%) can be generated by a longitudinally (transversely) spin-polarized electron beam, with a photon flux at a single shot meeting the requirements of recent proposals for the vacuum birefringence measurement in ultrastrong laser fields. Such high-energy, high-brilliance, high-polarization γ-rays are also beneficial for other applications in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and laboratory astrophysics.

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“…the process of vacuum birefringence in QED. This process has been extensively studied [55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66], but not yet experimentally observed. Therefore the clear demonstration of the pair production rate's dependence on the relative polarization is an indirect detection of the vacuum birefringence of QED.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical approach to the semiclassical method of pair production for arbitrary spins and photon polarization

Wistisen

2020

Phys. Rev. D

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In this paper we show how to recast the results of the semiclassical method of Baier, Katkov & Strakhovenko for pair production, including the possibility of specifying all the spin states and photon polarization, in a form that is suitable for numerical implementation. In this case, a new type of integral appears in addition to the ones required for the radiation emission process. We compare the resulting formulas with those obtained for a short pulse plane wave external field by using the Volkov state. We investigate the applicability of the local constant field approximation for the proposed upcoming experiments at FACET II at SLAC and LUXE at DESY. Finally, we provide results on the dependence of the pair production rate on the relative polarization between a linearly polarized laser pulse and a linearly polarized incoming high energy photon. We observe that even in the somewhat intermediate intensity regime of these experiments, there is roughly a factor of 2 difference between the pair production rates corresponding to the two relative photon polarizations, which is of interest in light of the vacuum birefringence of QED.

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High-Energy Vacuum Birefringence and Dichroism in an Ultrastrong Laser Field

Cited by 88 publications

References 84 publications

Probing Vacuum Polarization Effects with High-Intensity Lasers

Probing Vacuum Polarization Effects with High-Intensity Lasers

Polarized Ultrashort Brilliant Multi-GeV γ Rays via Single-Shot Laser-Electron Interaction

Numerical approach to the semiclassical method of pair production for arbitrary spins and photon polarization

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