Researchers from several leading scientific centers in France – Lidyl, CEA, CNRS and the University of Paris Saclay – have developed a new and promising method for achieving unprecedentedly high light intensities in the laboratory.
Their idea involves using strictly focused laser pulses with the effect of a Doppler – an additional strengthening of light due to the movement of its scattering particles. This approach is expected to bring scientists closer to the so-called “The Swinger limit” – the critical intensity of the electromagnetic field where new Quantum effects in strong fields should appear.
The new methodology has been detailed in an article published in the authoritative scientific journal Physical Review Letters. If successfully implemented, this method could pave the way for studying previously inaccessible physical regimes with extreme stresses of electromagnetic fields.
“The idea emerged within our team in 2019, and since then, it has been actively researched in collaboration with the Lawrence National Laboratory in Berkeley,” said the authors of the article – Henri Vincent and Neil Zaim. They are working on a new technique for creating light sources of extreme intensity to explore the strong-field regime of quantum electrodynamics.
Theory and Experiment
Quantum electrodynamics (QED) is one of the most accurate theories in physics. However, its strong-field regime remains poorly understood due to the challenges of experimental observation.
Theory SF-QED, developed decades ago, predicts the emergence of new physical phenomena in very strong electromagnetic fields. These phenomena include the radiation of gamma rays and the formation of pairs of antiparticles