Theoretical investigation of the highly nonlinear regime of quantum electrodynamics using laser-matter and laser-plasma interactions

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By colliding highly intense optical laser pulses with ultra relativistic electrons, obtainable from laser-plasma accelerators, the critical field of quantum electrodynamics (QED) becomes accessible with contemporary technology. Moreover, strong-field QED effects like quantum radiation reaction, prolific electron-positron pair production, and QED cascades will influence laser-matter and laser-plasma experiments at upcoming facilities like the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI). Laser-based strong-field experiments will therefore test the standard model of particle physics at the ``intensity frontier'', which is complementary to searches for new particles at the ``energy frontier'' with conventional particle collider experiments. In the regime where on the one hand collective plasma effects and the depletion of the laser field become important and on the other classical electrodynamics and also the perturbative treatment of QED break down, the QED particle-in-cell (PIC) approach is used for numerical calculations. Here, we suggest to investigate the validity of state-of-the-art QED-PIC calculations, to consider new phenomena not hitherto taken into account, and to analyze novel types of experiments which could probe the interplay between plasma physics and highly nonlinear QED processes.