A powerful laser produced antimatter from the vacuum

South Korean physicists have created a record-breaking powerful laser, the intensity of which flashes of radiation have reached a level that makes it possible to "extract" antimatter particles from the void of the vacuum. This was reported by the press service of the Institute of Basic Sciences (IBS) on Thursday with reference to an article in Optica magazine.

"Access to this power will allow us to begin the experimental study of many areas of physics, including the quantum electrodynamics of strong fields, which in the past remained the fate of theorists. In addition, these experiments will help us reveal the nature of many astrophysical phenomena and create new sources of particles suitable for cancer treatment," said IBS professor Nam Chang-hee, whose words are cited by the institute's press service.

According to scientists, a vacuum cannot be called a completely empty and lifeless space. In fact, as the laws of quantum physics say, it is filled with countless pairs of virtual particles and antiparticles that are constantly being born and disappearing. Scientists' calculations show that this "quantum noise" should affect the behavior of all other objects in the micro- and macrocosm.

Five years ago, Russian physicists discovered that the quantum nature of the vacuum could be used to study how light and matter interact with each other, including for the production of an almost unlimited number of positrons, the simplest particles of antimatter. To do this, it is enough to direct the beam of a high-power laser on a thin sheet of metal foil, the interactions between which will lead to the formation of a stream of positrons.

High energy physics

In the recent past, as noted by Professor Nam Chang-hee and his colleagues, practical verification of this idea was impossible, because it required a laser whose pulse intensity is about a million exawatts per square centimeter. This value was about two orders of magnitude higher than the power of bright lasers created by leading scientific teams in recent decades.

Korean physicists managed to come close to solving this problem by creating a new version of the super-powerful CoReLS laser, which in 2017 set one of the latest world records for the power of long bursts and the intensity of ultra-short pulses of light.

Scientists significantly changed the operation of this installation, changing the laser pumping system and installing new, more efficient versions of deformable mirrors in it, which allow to "compress" light pulses and simultaneously increase their intensity. This approach allowed physicists to increase the power of the laser by about an order of magnitude and reach a level that allows conducting experiments on the conversion of light into matter and the study of interactions between them.

In particular, in the near future, Professor Nam Chang-hee and his colleagues plan to use this facility to study how high-energy cosmic rays, which are heavy particles accelerated to near-Earth velocities due to interactions with magnetic fields and light particles, are produced. So far, scientists cannot say exactly where and how they arise, and experiments at CoReLS, as physicists hope, will provide an answer to this question.