arXiv subjects

Matt Zepf

Publications and source records attributed to Matt Zepf.

23 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Photon-Photon Scattering at the High-Intensity Frontier: Paraxial Beams

Our goal is to study optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearities in strong macroscopic electromagnetic fields provided by high-intensity laser beams. The vacuum emission scheme is perfectly suited for this task as it naturally distinguishes between incident laser beams, described as classical electromagnetic fields driving the effect, and emitted signal photons encoding the signature of quantum vacuum nonlinearity. Using the Heisenberg-Euler effective action, our approach allows for a reliable study of photonic signatures of QED vacuum nonlinearity in the parameter regimes accessible by all-optical high-intensity laser experiments. To this end, we employ an efficient, flexible numerical algorithm, which allows for a detailed study of the signal photons emerging in the collision of focused paraxial high-intensity laser pulses. Due to the high accuracy of our numerical solutions we predict the total number of signal photons, but also have full access to the signal photons' characteristics, including their spectrum, propagation directions and polarizations. We discuss setups offering an excellent background-to-noise ratio, thus providing an important step towards the experimental verification of quantum vacuum nonlinearities.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

All-optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearities in generic laser fields

All-optical experiments at the high-intensity frontier offer a promising route to unprecedented precision tests of quantum electrodynamics in strong macroscopic electromagnetic fields. So far, most theoretical studies of all-optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearity are based on simplifying approximations of the beam profiles and pulse shapes of the driving laser fields. Since precision tests require accurate quantitative theoretical predictions, we introduce an efficient numerical tool facilitating the quantitative theoretical study of all-optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearity in generic laser fields. Our approach is based on the vacuum emission picture, and makes use of the fact that the dynamics of the driving laser fields are to an excellent approximation governed by classical Maxwell theory in vacuum. In combination with a Maxwell solver, which self-consistently propagates any given laser field configuration, this allows for accurate theoretical predictions of photonic signatures of vacuum nonlinearity in high-intensity laser experiments from first principles. We employ our method to simulate photonic signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearity in laser pulse collisions involving a few-cycle pulse, and show that the angular and spectral distributions of the emitted signal photons deviate from those of the driving laser beams.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2018

Efficient retrieval of phase information from real-valued electromagnetic field data

While analytic calculations may give access to complex-valued electromagnetic field data which allow trivial access to envelope and phase information, the majority of numeric codes uses a real-valued represantation. This typically increases the performance and reduces the memory footprint, albeit at a price: In the real-valued case it is much more difficult to extract envelope and phase information, even more so if counter propagating waves are spatially superposed. A novel method for the analysis of real-valued electromagnetic field data is presented in this paper. We show that, by combining the real-valued electric and magnetic field at a single point in time, we can directly reconstruct the full information of the electromagnetic fields in the form of complex-valued spectral coefficients ($\vec{k}$-space) at a low computational cost of only three Fourier transforms. The method allows for counter propagating plane waves to be accurately distinguished as well as their complex spectral coefficients, i.\,e. spectral amplitudes and spectral phase to be calculated. From these amplitudes, the complex-valued electromagnetic fields and also the complex-valued vector potential can be calculated from which information about spatiotemporal phase and amplitude is readily available. Additionally, the complex fields allow for efficient vacuum propagation allowing to calculate far field data or boundary input data from near field data. An implementation of the new method is available as part of PostPic, a data analysis toolkit written in the Python programming language.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2017

A Systematic Approach to Numerical Dispersion in Maxwell Solvers

The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is a well established method for solving the time evolution of Maxwell's equations. Unfortunately the scheme introduces numerical dispersion and therefore phase and group velocities which deviate from the correct values. The solution to Maxwell's equations in more than one dimension results in non-physical predictions such as numerical dispersion or numerical Cherenkov radiation emitted by a relativistic electron beam propagating in vacuum. Improved solvers, which keep the staggered Yee-type grid for electric and magnetic fields, generally modify the spatial derivative operator in the Maxwell-Faraday equation by increasing the computational stencil. These modified solvers can be characterized by different sets of coefficients, leading to different dispersion properties. In this work we introduce a norm function to rewrite the choice of coefficients into a minimization problem. We solve this problem numerically and show that the minimization procedure leads to phase and group velocities that are considerably closer to $c$ as compared to schemes with manually set coefficients available in the literature. Depending on a specific problem at hand (e.g. electron beam propagation in plasma, high-order harmonic generation from plasma surfaces, etc), the norm function can be chosen accordingly, for example, to minimize the numerical dispersion in a certain given propagation direction. Particle-in-cell simulations of an electron beam propagating in vacuum using our solver are provided.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2015

Vacuum birefringence in strong inhomogeneous electromagnetic fields

Birefringence is one of the fascinating properties of the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in strong electromagnetic fields. The scattering of linearly polarized incident probe photons into a perpendicularly polarized mode provides a distinct signature of the optical activity of the quantum vacuum and thus offers an excellent opportunity for a precision test of non-linear QED. Precision tests require accurate predictions and thus a theoretical framework that is capable of taking the detailed experimental geometry into account. We derive analytical solutions for vacuum birefringence which include the spatio-temporal field structure of a strong optical pump laser field and an x-ray probe. We show that the angular distribution of the scattered photons depends strongly on the interaction geometry and find that scattering of the perpendicularly polarized scattered photons out of the cone of the incident probe x-ray beam is the key to making the phenomenon experimentally accessible with the current generation of FEL/high-field laser facilities.

hep-ph↗