%0 Electronic Article
%A Ahmadiniaz, Naser
%A Baehtz, Carsten
%A Benediktovitch, Andrei
%A Boemer, Christina
%A Bocklage, Lars
%A Cowan, Thomas
%A Edwards, James
%A Evans, S.
%A Viñas, S. Franchino
%A Gies, Holger
%A Goede, Sebastian
%A Goers, Judith
%A Grenzer, Joerg
%A Acosta, U. Hernandez
%A Heinzl, Thomas
%A Hilz, Peter
%A Hippler, Willi
%A Huang, Lingen
%A Humphries, Oliver
%A Karbstein, Felix
%A Khademi, Pooyan
%A King, Ben
%A Kluge, Thomas
%A Kohlfürst, C.
%A Krebs, Dietrich
%A Laso-García, A.
%A Loetzsch, Robert
%A Macleod, Alexander
%A Marx-Glowna, Berit
%A Mosman, Elena
%A Nakatsutsumi, Motoaki
%A Paulus, Gerhard
%A Rahul, Sripati Venkata
%A Randolph, Lisa
%A Roehlsberger, Ralf
%A Rohringer, Nina
%A Saevert, Alexander
%A Sadashivaiah, Sakshath
%A sauerbrey, roland
%A Schlenvoigt, Hans-Peter
%A Schmidt, Soeren Matthias
%A Schramm, Ulrich
%A Schuetzhold, Ralf
%A Schwinkendorf, Jan-Patrick
%A Seipt, Daniel
%A Smid, Miroslav
%A Stoehlker, Thomas
%A Toncian, Toma
%A Valialshchikov, Maksim
%A Wipf, Susan
%A Zastrau, Ulf
%A Zepf, Matt
%T Towards a vacuum birefringence experiment at the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (Letter of Intent of the BIREF@HIBEF Collaboration)
%N arXiv:2405.18063
%M PUBDB-2025-01129
%M arXiv:2405.18063
%D 2025
%Z High Power Laser Science and Engineering, Vol. 13, e7 (2025). 34 pages, 21 figures
%X Quantum field theory predicts a nonlinear response of the vacuum to strong electromagnetic fields of macroscopic extent. This fundamental tenet has remained experimentally challenging and is yet to be tested in the laboratory. A particularly distinct signature of the resulting optical activity of the quantum vacuum is vacuum birefringence. This offers an excellent opportunity for a precision test of nonlinear quantum electrodynamics in an uncharted parameter regime. Recently, the operation of the high-intensity Relativistic Laser at the X-ray Free Electron Laser provided by the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields has been inaugurated at the High Energy Density scientific instrument of the European X-ray Free Electron Laser. We make the case that this worldwide unique combination of an X-ray free-electron laser and an ultra-intense near-infrared laser together with recent advances in high-precision X-ray polarimetry, refinements of prospective discovery scenarios and progress in their accurate theoretical modelling have set the stage for performing an actual discovery experiment of quantum vacuum nonlinearity.
%K birefringence: vacuum (INSPIRE)
%K electromagnetic field: high (INSPIRE)
%K quantum electrodynamics: nonlinear (INSPIRE)
%K polarization: monitoring (INSPIRE)
%K laser: infrared (INSPIRE)
%K free electron laser: X-ray (INSPIRE)
%K optics (INSPIRE)
%K precision measurement (INSPIRE)
%K experimental methods (INSPIRE)
%K light-by-light scattering (autogen)
%K vacuum birefringence (autogen)
%K vacuum polarization (autogen)
%F PUB:(DE-HGF)25
%9 Preprint
%R 10.3204/PUBDB-2025-01129
%U https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/625552