Finding quantum effects in strong classical potentials
Abstract
The long-standing challenge to describing charged particle dynamics in strong classical electromagnetic fields is how to incorporate classical radiation, classical radiation reaction and quantized photon emission into a consistent unified framework. The current, semiclassical methods to describe the dynamics of quantum particles in strong classical fields also provide the theoretical framework for fundamental questions in gravity and hadron-hadron collisions, including Hawking radiation, cosmological particle production and thermalization of particles created in heavy-ion collisions. However, as we show, these methods break down for highly relativistic particles propagating in strong fields. They must therefore be improved and adapted for the description of laser-plasma experiments that typically involve the acceleration of electrons. Theory developed from quantum electrodynamics, together with dedicated experimental efforts, offer the best controllable context to establish a robust, experimentally validated foundation for the fundamental theory of quantum effects in strong classical potentials.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Plasma Physics
- Pub Date:
- June 2017
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S0022377817000344
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1704.05034
- Bibcode:
- 2017JPlPh..83c5901H
- Keywords:
-
- intense particle beams;
- quantum plasma;
- strongly coupled plasmas;
- Physics - Plasma Physics
- E-Print:
- 23 pages, 2 figures, as published in Journal of Plasma Physics