Probing the Quantum Vacuum with High Power Laser and 4th Generation Light Sources in the Search for New Physics

一种普遍的看法是，基础物理的实验室测试必然需要大型粒子对撞机。然而，由于超高强度光学激光器和第四代光源的发展，现在有可能通过量子场涨落来利用多个光子与物质和真空同时相互作用的新方法。在这个方案中，我们将使用这些高场非微扰量子光学过程来寻找新的基本粒子。由于基于加速器的搜索尚未在高能发现新的物理，超高强度光学激光器和第四代光源为光学和X射线能量的搜索提供了一种新的互补方法。这一提议解决了基础物理学中的一个重要问题，即通过在实验室中寻找被称为轴子的标准模型以外的新粒子。我们的工作将能够探测比几个eV更大的轴子质量，最高可达1kev--这是目前实验室搜索无法到达的区域。在EV-KeV质量范围内。这里提出的搜索是唯一与模型无关的搜索，这意味着实验可以完全控制同一仪器中轴子的产生和再转化--而不需要假设轴子是由天体物理对象(如太阳)产生的，或者构成暗物质的一大部分。

A common perception is that laboratory tests of fundamental physics necessarily require large particle colliders. However, thanks to the development of ultra high-intensity optical lasers and 4th generation light sources, new approaches are now possible that exploit the simultaneous interactions of multiple photons with matter and vacua via quantum field fluctuations. In this proposal, we will employ these high-field non-perturbative quantum optics processes to search for new fundamental particles. Since accelerator-based searches have not yet found new physics at high energies, ultra high-intensity optical lasers and 4th generation light sources offer a novel complementary approach for searches at optical and X-ray energies. This proposal addresses an important question in fundamental physics by developing a laboratory search for new particles beyond the Standard Model called axions. Our work will be able to probe axion masses bigger than a few eV up to a keV - a region that is currently inaccessible to laboratory searches. In the eV-keV mass range. the searches proposed here are the only model-independent ones, meaning that the experiments have full control over both the production and reconversion of axions within the same apparatus - without the need to assume that axions are produced by astrophysical objects (such as the Sun) or constitute a large fraction of the dark matter.