All-optical signatures of Strong-Field QED in the vacuum emission picture

TL;DR

This paper investigates the optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearities during high-intensity laser collisions, proposing a numerical method to identify experimental conditions for observing these effects.

Contribution

It introduces an efficient numerical algorithm based on vacuum emission to analyze quantum vacuum nonlinearities in realistic laser collision setups.

Findings

Identified experimental geometries with enhanced signal-to-noise ratios.

Developed a 3+1D numerical scheme for realistic laser field configurations.

Provided insights into the kinematic and polarization signatures of vacuum nonlinearities.

Abstract

We study all-optical signatures of the effective nonlinear couplings among electromagnetic fields in the quantum vacuum, using the collision of two focused high-intensity laser pulses as an example. The experimental signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearities are encoded in signal photons, whose kinematic and polarization properties differ from the photons constituting the macroscopic laser fields. We implement an efficient numerical algorithm allowing for the theoretical investigation of such signatures in realistic field configurations accessible in experiment. This algorithm is based on a vacuum emission scheme and can readily be adapted to the collision of more laser beams or further involved field configurations. We solve the case of two colliding pulses in full 3+1 dimensional spacetime, and identify experimental geometries and parameter regimes with improved signal-to-noise ratios.