Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades

Abstract QED cascades are complex avalanche processes of hard photon emission and electron-positron pair creation driven by ultrastrong electromagnetic fields. They play a fundamental role in astrophysical environments such as a pulsars’ magnetosphere, rendering an earth-based implementation with in...

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Autores principales:	Matteo Tamburini, Antonino Di Piazza, Christoph H. Keitel
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2017
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/5de2f07ba5654fe88a77724994a493ce
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:5de2f07ba5654fe88a77724994a493ce2021-12-02T12:32:45ZLaser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades10.1038/s41598-017-05891-z2045-2322https://doaj.org/article/5de2f07ba5654fe88a77724994a493ce2017-07-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05891-zhttps://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract QED cascades are complex avalanche processes of hard photon emission and electron-positron pair creation driven by ultrastrong electromagnetic fields. They play a fundamental role in astrophysical environments such as a pulsars’ magnetosphere, rendering an earth-based implementation with intense lasers attractive. In the literature, QED cascades were also predicted to limit the attainable intensity in a set-up of colliding laser beams in a tenuous gas such as the residual gas of a vacuum chamber, therefore severely hindering experiments at extreme field intensities. Here, we demonstrate that the onset of QED cascades may be either prevented even at intensities around 1026 W/cm2 with tightly focused laser pulses and low-Z gases, or facilitated at intensities below 1024 W/cm2 with enlarged laser focal areas or high-Z gases. These findings pave the way for the control of novel experiments such as the generation of pure electron-positron-photon plasmas from laser energy, and for probing QED in the extreme-intensity regime where the quantum vacuum becomes unstable.Matteo TamburiniAntonino Di PiazzaChristoph H. KeitelNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-8 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Matteo Tamburini Antonino Di Piazza Christoph H. Keitel Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades
description	Abstract QED cascades are complex avalanche processes of hard photon emission and electron-positron pair creation driven by ultrastrong electromagnetic fields. They play a fundamental role in astrophysical environments such as a pulsars’ magnetosphere, rendering an earth-based implementation with intense lasers attractive. In the literature, QED cascades were also predicted to limit the attainable intensity in a set-up of colliding laser beams in a tenuous gas such as the residual gas of a vacuum chamber, therefore severely hindering experiments at extreme field intensities. Here, we demonstrate that the onset of QED cascades may be either prevented even at intensities around 1026 W/cm2 with tightly focused laser pulses and low-Z gases, or facilitated at intensities below 1024 W/cm2 with enlarged laser focal areas or high-Z gases. These findings pave the way for the control of novel experiments such as the generation of pure electron-positron-photon plasmas from laser energy, and for probing QED in the extreme-intensity regime where the quantum vacuum becomes unstable.
format	article
author	Matteo Tamburini Antonino Di Piazza Christoph H. Keitel
author_facet	Matteo Tamburini Antonino Di Piazza Christoph H. Keitel
author_sort	Matteo Tamburini
title	Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades
title_short	Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades
title_full	Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades
title_fullStr	Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades
title_full_unstemmed	Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades
title_sort	laser-pulse-shape control of seeded qed cascades
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/5de2f07ba5654fe88a77724994a493ce
work_keys_str_mv	AT matteotamburini laserpulseshapecontrolofseededqedcascades AT antoninodipiazza laserpulseshapecontrolofseededqedcascades AT christophhkeitel laserpulseshapecontrolofseededqedcascades
_version_	1718393980430843904

Laser-pulse-shape control of seeded QED cascades

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