SAMOP 2021 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 17: Quantum Effects
Q 17.12: Poster
Thursday, September 23, 2021, 16:30–18:30, P
X-ray vacuum diffraction at finite spatio-temporal offset — •Ricardo Oude Weernink1,2,3 and Felix Karbstein1,2,3 — 1Helmholtz-Institut Jena, Jena, Germany — 2GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt, Germany — 3Theoretisch-Physikalisches Institut, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Jena, Germany
Quantum electrodynamics predicts effective non-linear interactions mediated by the quantum vacuum between applied strong electromagnetic fields. One prominent signature of these non-linear interactions is photon-photon scattering. Measuring this process experimentally using macroscopic fields is a difficult endeavour and has yet to be achieved. In such high-intensity laser experiments separating the signal from the relatively large background poses a major challenge. Our research focuses on finding the optimal combination of beam positioning, laser modes and parameters.
In this poster we study the nonlinear QED signature of x-ray vacuum diffraction in the head-on collision of optical high-intensity and x-ray free-electron laser pulses at finite spatio-temporal offsets between the laser foci. To this end, we model both the pump and probe fields as pulsed paraxial Gaussian beams and analyze this effect from first principles. We focus on vacuum diffraction both as an individual signature of quantum vacuum nonlinearity and as a potential means to improve the signal-to-background-separation in vacuum birefringence experiments. Our work is relevant for ongoing and projected experiments at SACLA (Japan) and the European XFEL (Germany).