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Register a new userDetection of Vacuum Birefringence with Intense Laser Pulses
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We propose a novel technique that promises hope of being the first to directly detect a polarization in the quantum electrodynamic (QED) vacuum. The technique is based upon the use of ultra-short pulses of light circulating in low dispersion optical resonators. We show that the technique circumvents the need for large scale liquid helium cooled magnets, and more importantly avoids the experimental pitfalls that plague existing experiments that make use of these magnets. Likely improvements in the performance of optics and lasers would result in the ability to observe vacuum polarization in an experiment of only a few hours duration.
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We present the current status of the BMV experiment. Our apparatus is based on an up-to-date resonant optical cavity coupled to a transverse magnetic field. We detail our data acquisition and analysis procedure which takes into account the symmetry properties of the raw data with respect to the orientation of the magnetic field and the sign of the cavity birefringence. The measurement result of the vacuum magnetic linear birefringence k_mathrm{CM}$ presented in this paper was obtained with about 200 magnetic pulses and a maximum field of 6.5,T, giving a noise floor of about $8 times 10^{-21}$,T$^{-2}$ at $3sigma$ confidence level.
Vacuum polarization, an effect predicted nearly 70 years ago, is still yet to be directly detected despite significant experimental effort. Previous attempts have made use of large liquid-helium cooled electromagnets which inadvertently generate spurious signals that mask the desired signal. We present a novel approach for the ultra-sensitive detection of optical birefringence that can be usefully applied to a laboratory detection of vacuum polarization. The new technique has a predicted birefringence measurement sensitivity of $Delta n sim 10^{20}$ in a 1 second measurement. When combined with the extreme polarizing fields achievable in this design we predict that a vacuum polarization signal will be seen in a measurement of just a few days in duration.
This paper describes the 25 year effort to measure vacuum magnetic birefringence and dichroism with the PVLAS experiment. The experiment went through two main phases: the first using a rotating superconducting magnet and the second using two rotating permanent magnets. The experiment was not able to reach the predicted value from QED. Nonetheless the experiment set the current best limits on vacuum magnetic birefringence and dichroism for a field of $B_{rm ext} = 2.5$ T, namely, $Delta n^{rm (PVLAS)} = (12pm17)times10^{-23}$ and $|Deltakappa|^{rm (PVLAS)} = (10pm28)times10^{-23}$. The uncertainty on $Delta n^{rm (PVLAS)}$ is about a factor 7 above the predicted value of $Delta n^{rm (QED)} = 2.5times10^{-23}$ @ 2.5 T.
Sources of intense, ultra-short electromagnetic pulses enable applications such as attosecond pulse generation, control of electron motion in solids and the observation of reaction dynamics at the electronic level. For such applications both high-intensity and carrier envelope phase~(CEP) tunability are beneficial, yet hard to obtain with current methods. In this work we present a new scheme for generation of isolated CEP-tunable intense sub-cycle pulses with central frequencies that range from the midinfrared to the ultraviolet. It utilizes an intense laser pulse which drives a wake in a plasma, co-propagating with a long-wavelength seed pulse. The moving electron density spike of the wake amplifies the seed and forms a sub-cycle pulse. Controlling the CEP of the seed pulse, or the delay between driver and seed leads to CEP-tunability, while frequency tunability can be achieved by adjusting the laser and plasma parameters. Our 2D and 3D Particle-In-Cell simulations predict laser-to-sub-cycle-pulse conversion efficiencies up to 1%, resulting in relativistically intense sub-cycle pulses.
We show that extreme vacuum pressures can be measured with current technology by detecting the photons produced by the relativistic Thomson scattering of ultra-intense laser light by the electrons of the medium. We compute the amount of radiation scattered at different frequencies and angles and design strategies for the efficient measurement of pressure. In particular, we show that a single day experiment at a high repetition rate Petawatt laser facility such as VEGA, that will be operating in 2014 in Salamanca, will be sensitive, in principle, to pressures p as low as 10^{-16} Pa, and will be able to provide highly reliable measurements for p>10^{-14} Pa.
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