Motivated by corresponding experimental prospects (such as E3 or LUXE at DESY) we study strong-field Breit-Wheeler pair production by bremsstrahlung gamma-rays propagating through a high-intensity optical laser wave. The influence of the broad frequency spectrum of the bremsstrahlung on the properties of the process in the transition region between the perturbative and the non-perturbative...
Current experimental efforts toward the detection of the nonperturbative nonlinear strong-field regime of Breit-Wheeler pair creation plan to combine incoherent sources of GeV $\gamma$ quanta and tightly focussed optical laser pulses. This endeavour calls for a theoretical understanding of how the pair yields depend on the applied laser field profile [1]. In the present discussion, we provide...
In the paper Relativistic Quantum Transport Theory for
Electrodynamics by Zhuang, Heinz et al. a complete set of kinetic
equations for the covariant equal-time formulation of the quantum
kinetic theory is derived. We expand on this theory by computing
numerical solutions for time-dependent electric fields in the Schwinger
approximation. Early results suggest an important role of the...
The calculation of colliding laser pulses in the weak-field limit of the
Heisenberg-Euler quantum vacuum up to three spatial dimensions is
carried out using our Heisenberg-Euler Weak-Field Expansion
Simulator (HEWES). With the aid of HEWES different scenarios
potentially relevant are investigated.
I present results from a study of the collision of two optical laser pulses in a pump-probe setup using beams with circular and elliptic cross section and estimate the number of discernible signal photons induced by quantum vacuum nonlinearities. In this analysis we study strategies to optimize the quantum vacuum signal discernible from the background of the driving lasers. One of the main...
Quantum vacuum nonlinearity allows for the effect of laser photon merging in the collision of two (or more) laser beams. As the merged photons origin from a manifestly inelastic process, their energy differs significantly from the background photons of the driving lasers, making them accessible for experiments. However, the number of merged photons is typically considered to be very small.
In...
The studies conducted during the first funding period led to a proposed set-up for a discovery experiment of photon-photon scattering in CALA (Munich) using two colliding laser pulses at fundamental frequency. In this talk we will give an update on our current understanding of the physics involved in the signal as well as background noise and report on the status of the final experiment design.
Updates on the E3 experiment at CALA and the first background measurements with the single particle detectors.
We will present an update on project related preparatory studies at CALA.
