Speaker
Description
In 1936, Euler and Heisenberg (Z. Phys. 98, 714–732, 1936) showed that in quantum electrodynamics (QED), the coupling of light to virtual electron-positron pairs gives rise to effective photon-photon interactions. Thus, the physical vacuum possesses an extremely faint nonlinear-optical susceptibility. Ninety years later, the quest to measure the electromagnetic nonlinearity of vacuum (EMNV) is ongoing across multiple experimental platforms, aiming to validate this fundamental prediction of QED and constrain new physics theories beyond the Standard Model.
We are working toward an all-optical tabletop experiment that will measure the EMNV at the QED-predicted level. Our approach is based on resonantly enhanced four-wave mixing of laser beams in high-finesse, high-power optical resonators. To this end, we have demonstrated an optical resonator reaching a record average circulating power of 2.5 MW. This result paves the way toward the measurement of the nonlinear-optical properties of vacuum in the near future.