Strong Field QED

Strong Field QED

The interaction of intense light with the quantum vacuum and charged matter is predicted to give rise to fundamental and exotic processes which remain untested in the laboratory to date.  Although quantum electrodynamics has been measured to great precision, in the regime of strong fields tests are only becoming possible just now.  In this uncharted region of strong-field QED, it is expected that QED transitions from a perturbative to non-perturbative theory.  The phenomena of strong fields, although largely untested in the laboratory, manifest themselves in neutron stars, black holes, in heavy ions, and affect future high-energy particle accelerators and future lasers.

LUXE

Strong-field QED can be studied at various facilities, where the UCL HEP group’s focus is the LUXE Experiment in Hamburg, Germany. The LUXE experiment aims to measure this transition to a non-perturbative theory, which occurs around the so-called Schwinger field.  Through electron-laser and photon-laser collisions, LUXE will measure Compton scattering and electron-positron pair production in this new regime.  We will use the exquisite high energy electron beam from the European XFEL and a high-power laser pulse of varying intensity.  Due to the flexibility of the experiment, LUXE will measure strong-field QED over a wide kinematic parameter space and with high accuracy and precision.  Due to the high flux of produced photons, the experiment will also be sensitive to the production of hidden sector particles, probing physics beyond the Standard Model.

For more information, see the recently published Technical Design Report or a short summary.  

For more information, contact Prof. Matthew Wing.