Antonino Di Piazza

A matterless double slit

Double slits provide incoming particles with a choice. Those that survive passage through the slits have chosen from two possible paths, which interfere to distribute them in a wave-like manner. Such wave–particle duality1 continues to be challenged2,3,4,5 and investigated in a broad range of disciplines with electrons6, neutrons7, helium atoms8, C60 fullerenes9, Bose–Einstein condensates10 and biological molecules11. All variants have hitherto involved material constituents. We present a matterless double-slit scenario in which photons generated from virtual electron–positron pair annihilation in head-on collisions of a probe laser field with two ultra-intense laser beams form a double-slit interference pattern. Such electromagnetic fields are predicted to induce material-like behaviour in vacuum, supporting elastic scattering between photons12,13. Our double-slit scenario presents, on the one hand, a realizable method with which to observe photon–photon scattering and, on the other hand, demonstrates the possibility of both controlling light with light and non-locally investigating features of the quantum vacuum structure. A matterless double-slit scenario is proposed, in which photons generated from head-on collisions between a probe laser field and two ultraintense laser beams form a double-slit interference pattern. Such electromagnetic fields are predicted to induce material-like behaviour in a vacuum, supporting elastic scattering between photons.

Stochasticity effects in quantum radiation reaction.

When an ultrarelativistic electron beam collides with a sufficiently intense laser pulse, radiation-reaction effects can strongly alter the beam dynamics. In the realm of classical electrodynamics, radiation reaction has a beneficial effect on the electron beam as it tends to reduce its energy spread. Here we show that when quantum effects become important, radiation reaction induces the opposite effect; i.e., the energy distribution of the electron beam spreads out after interacting with the laser pulse. We identify the physical origin of this opposite tendency in the intrinsic stochasticity of photon emission, which becomes substantial in the quantum regime. Our numerical simulations indicate that the predicted effects of the stochasticity can be measured already with presently available lasers and electron accelerators.

Semiclassical picture for electron-positron photoproduction in strong laser fields

The nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process is studied in the presence of strong and short laser pulses. We show that for a relativistically intense plane-wave laser field many features of the momentum distribution of the produced electron-positron pair like its extension, region of highest probability and carrier-envelope phase effects can be explained from the classical evolution of the created particles in the background field. To this end an intuitive semiclassical picture based on the local constant-crossed field approximation applied on the probability-amplitude level is established and compared with the standard approach used in QED-PIC codes. The main difference is the substructure of the spectrum, which results from interference effects between macroscopically separated formation regions. In order to compare the predictions of the semiclassical approach with exact calculations, a very fast numerical scheme is introduced. It renders the calculation of the fully differential spectrum on a grid which resolves all interference fringes feasible. Finally, the difference between classical and quantum absorption of laser four-momentum in the process is pointed out and the dominance of the former is proven. As a self-consistent treatment of the quantum absorption is not feasible within existing QED-PIC approaches, our results provide reliable error estimates relevant for regimes where the laser depletion due to a developing QED cascade becomes significant.

Ultrarelativistic electron states in a general background electromagnetic field

The feasibility of obtaining exact analytical results in the realm of QED in the presence of a background electromagnetic field is almost exclusively limited to a few tractable cases, where the Dirac equation in the corresponding background field can be solved analytically. This circumstance has restricted, in particular, the theoretical analysis of QED processes in intense laser fields to within the plane wave approximation even at those high intensities, achievable experimentally only by tightly focusing the laser energy in space. Here, within the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approximation, we construct analytically single-particle electron states in the presence of a background electromagnetic field of general space-time structure in the realistic assumption that the initial energy of the electron is the largest dynamical energy scale in the problem. The relatively compact expression of these states opens, in particular, the possibility of investigating analytically strong-field QED processes in the presence of spatially focused laser beams, which is of particular relevance in view of the upcoming experimental campaigns in this field.

Photon polarization as a probe for quark-gluon plasma dynamics

Abstract Prospects of measuring polarized photons emitted from a quark–gluon plasma (QGP) are discussed. In particular, the detection of a possible quark spin polarization in a QGP using circularly polarized photons emitted from the plasma is studied. Photons leave the QGP without further interaction and thus provide a primary probe for quark polarization within the QGP. We find that photon polarization cannot solely arise due to a possible QGP momentum space anisotropy, but may be enhanced due to it. In particular, for oblate momentum distributions and high photon energies, quark polarization is efficiently transfered to photon polarization. The role of competing sources of polarized photons in heavy-ion collisions is discussed.

Quantum Electron Self-Interaction in a Strong Laser Field

The quantum state of an electron in a strong laser field is altered if the interaction of the electron with its own electromagnetic field is taken into account. Starting from the Schwinger-Dirac equation, we determine the states of an electron in a plane-wave field with inclusion, at leading order, of its electromagnetic self-interaction. On the one hand, the electron states show a pure quantum contribution to the electron quasimomentum, conceptually different from the conventional classical one arising from the quiver motion of the electron. On the other hand, the electron self-interaction induces a distinct dynamics of the electron spin, whose effects are shown to be measurable in principle with available technology.

Polarization operator for plane-wave background fields

We derive an alternative representation of the leading-order contribution to the polarization operator in strong-field quantum electrodynamics with a plane-wave electromagnetic background field, which is manifestly symmetric with respect to the external photon momenta. Our derivation is based on a direct evaluation of the corresponding Feynman diagram, using the Volkov representation of the dressed fermion propagator. Furthermore, the validity of the Ward-Takahashi identity is shown for general loop diagrams in an external plane-wave background field.

Laser-Pulse-Shape Control of Seeded QED Cascades

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.

High-Energy Recollision Processes of Laser-Generated Electron-Positron Pairs

Two oppositely charged particles created within a microscopic space-time region can be separated, accelerated over a much larger distance, and brought to a recollision by a laser field. Consequently, new reactions become feasible, where the energy absorbed by the particles is efficiently released. By investigating the laser-dressed polarization operator, we identify a new contribution describing high-energy recollisions experienced by an electron-positron pair generated by pure light when a gamma photon impinges on an intense, linearly polarized laser pulse. The energy absorbed in the recollision process over the macroscopic laser wavelength corresponds to a large number of laser photons and can be exploited to prime high-energy reactions. Thus, the recollision contribution to the polarization operator differs qualitatively and quantitatively from the well-known one, describing the annihilation of an electron-positron pair within the microscopic formation region.

Axion-induced birefringence effects in laser driven nonlinear vacuum interaction

A bstractThe propagation of a probe electromagnetic field through a counterpropagating strong plane wave is investigated. The effects of the electromagnetic field-(pseudo)scalar axion field interaction and of the self-interaction of the electromagnetic field mediated by virtual electron-positron pairs in the effective Lagrangian approach are included. First, we show that if the strong field is circularly polarized, contrary to the leading-order non-linear QED effects, the axion-photon interaction induces a chiral-like birefringence and a dichroism in the vacuum. The latter effect is explained by evoking the conservation of the total angular momentum along the common propagation direction of probe and the strong wave, which allows for real axion production only for probe and strong fields with the same elicity. Moreover, in the case of ultra-short strong pulses, it is shown that the absorption coefficients of probe photons depend on the form of the pulse and, in particular, on the carrier-envelope phase of the strong beam. The present results can be exploited experimentally to isolate nonlinear vacuum effects stemming from light-axion interaction, especially at upcoming ultra-strong laser facilities, where stringent constraints on the axion-photon coupling constant are in principle provided.