Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 22: Matter Wave Optics II

Q 22.6: Talk

Monday, March 5, 2018, 17:30–17:45, K 1.013

Quantum Limitation to the Coherent Emission of Accelerated Charges — •Alessandro Angioi and Antonino Di Piazza — Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, D-69117 Heidelberg

Accelerated charges emit electromagnetic radiation [1]. According to classical electrodynamics if the charges are sufficiently close to each other they emit coherently, i.e., their emission yield scales quadratically with the number of emitting charges rather than linearly. By investigating the emission by two-electron wave packets in the presence of an electromagnetic plane wave within strong-field QED [2], we show that quantum effects deteriorate the coherence predicted by classical electrodynamics even if the quantum nonlinearity parameter is much smaller than unity and classical and quantum results are expected to agree [3]. We explain this result by observing that coherence effects are also controlled by a new quantum parameter which relates the recoil undergone by the electron with the width of its wave packet in momentum space.

[1] J. D. Jackson, Classical electrodynamics (Wiley, New York, 1999).
A. Di Piazza et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 84, 1177 (2012).
A. Angioi and A. Di Piazza, In preparation.