Abstract
We study the collision of two optical laser pulses in a pump-probe setup using beams with circular and elliptic cross section and estimate the number of discernible signal photons induced by quantum vacuum nonlinearities. In this analysis we study strategies to optimize the quantum vacuum signal discernible from the background of the driving lasers. One of the main results is that the collision of two maximally focused lasers does not lead to the best discernible signal. Instead, widening the focus typically improves the signal to background separation in the far field. For petawatt class lasers, an optimal choice of the focus waist yields several discernible photons per shot in contrast to no discernible signal for tight focusing. Further enhancement is possible by using an elliptical waist.
7 More- Received 10 July 2022
- Accepted 17 November 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.106.116005
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.
Published by the American Physical Society