Light-Matter Interaction near the Schwinger Limit Using Tightly Focused Doppler-Boosted Lasers.

Strong-field quantum electrodynamics (SF QED) is a burgeoning research topic dealing with electromagnetic fields comparable to the Schwinger field (≈1.32×10^{18}  V/m). While most past and proposed experiments rely on reaching this field in the rest frame of relativistic particles, the Schwinger limit could also be approached in the laboratory frame by focusing to its diffraction limit the light reflected by a plasma mirror irradiated by a multipetawatt laser.

Stochastic heating of free electrons in multiple electromagnetic waves: A simple physical analysis.

It is established that charged particles crossing the interference field of two colliding electromagnetic (EM) waves can behave chaotically, leading to a stochastic heating of the particle distribution. A fine understanding of the stochastic heating process is crucial to the optimization of many physical applications requiring a high EM energy deposition to these charged particles. Predicting key stochastic heating features (particle distribution, chaos threshold) is usually achieved using a heavy Hamiltonian formalism required to model particle dynamics in chaotic regimes.

Probing Strong-Field QED with Doppler-Boosted Petawatt-Class Lasers.

We propose a scheme to explore regimes of strong-field quantum electrodynamics (SF QED) otherwise unattainable with the currently available laser technology. The scheme relies on relativistic plasma mirrors curved by radiation pressure to boost the intensity of petawatt-class laser pulses by Doppler effect and focus them to extreme field intensities. We show that very clear SF QED signatures could be observed by placing a secondary target where the boosted beam is focused.

Spatio-temporal characterization of attosecond pulses from plasma mirrors.

Reaching light intensities above 10 W/cm and up to the Schwinger limit of the order of 10 W/cm would enable testing fundamental predictions of quantum electrodynamics. A promising - yet challenging - approach to achieve such extreme fields consists in reflecting a high-power femtosecond laser pulse off a curved relativistic mirror. This enhances the intensity of the reflected beam by simultaneously compressing it in time down to the attosecond range, and focusing it to sub-micrometre focal spots.

Achieving Extreme Light Intensities using Optically Curved Relativistic Plasma Mirrors.

This Letter proposes a realistic implementation of the curved relativistic mirror concept to reach unprecedented light intensities in experiments. The scheme is based on relativistic plasma mirrors that are optically curved by laser radiation pressure. Its validity is supported by cutting-edge three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations and a theoretical model, which show that intensities above 10^{25}  W cm^{-2} could be reached with a 3 PetaWatt (PW) laser.