2002/06/03 by Craig D. Roberts, C. D. Roberts, S. M. Schmidt +2 · 94 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced X-ray Imaging Techniques #Atomic physics #Electron #Field (mathematics) #Fluid Dynamics and Turbulent Flows #Free electron model #Free-electron laser #Kinetic energy #Laser #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Pair production #Photon #Physics #Plasma #Quantum #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics #hep-ex #hep-ph #nucl-ex #nucl-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.89.153901
published in Physical Review Letters 89(15), 153901 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, LaTeX2e
arxiv created 2002/06/03 · openalex publication_date 2002/09/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
A quantum kinetic equation coupled with Maxwell's equation is used to estimate the laser power required at an x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) facility to expose intrinsically quantum effects in the process of QED vacuum decay via spontaneous pair production. A 9 -TW-peak XFEL laser with photon energy of 8.3 keV could be sufficient to initiate particle accumulation and the consequent formation of a plasma of spontaneously produced pairs. The evolution of the particle number in the plasma will exhibit non-Markovian aspects of the strong-field pair production process, and the plasma's internal currents will generate an electric field whose interference with that of the laser leads to plasma oscillations.