Feeling the Texture of Vacuum: Laser Acceleration toward PeV

Abstract

We contemplate if there is a way to reach energies that allow us to probe the tiniest structures in the physical world in a laboratory. Identified are the method of laser acceleration to meet this challenge and a set of ballpark parameters for laser, plasma, and accelerator technologies that are defined for accelerated electron energies reaching as high as PeV. These parameters are carved out from the theoretical laws that govern the physics of laser acceleration, theoretically suggested and experimentally explored over a wide range in recent years. We extrapolate this knowledge toward PeV energies (over 1000 stages of TeV). In the density regime on the order of 10 cm−3, it is possible to consider the application of the existing NIF (or LMJ) or its extended lasers to their appropriate retrofitting for this purpose. Such energies by themselves may allow us to begin to feel and study the physics of the ‘texture of vacuum’. This is an example of fundamental physics exploration without the need of luminosity paradigm and even the production of a single particle at PeV per shot amounts to useful physics at such an extreme energy that far surpasses the contemporary energy horizon in the laboratory. By converting accelerated electrons with extreme energies to like-energy gamma photons, and let them propagate through vacuum over a sufficient distance, these extremely high energy (and therefore short wavelength) photons experience smallest vacuum structures and fluctuations. We introduce an ultrashort detection method of PeV energy γ’s with sub-fs sensitivity by the novel combination of the Schwinger-like vacuum emission of e−e+ by the PeV γ and the carrier-envelope phase (CEP) laser streaking technique with the attosecond phase accuracy. This compilation of the ability to reach PeV and to measure the fs time resolution of PeV γ photons can provide valuable data if and how gamma photons still obey the premise of relativity or the vacuum texture begins to alter such fundamentals. The only method currently available to look at this problem may be to study astrophysical data of the primordial gamma ray bursts (GRBs), which are compared with the presently suggested approach.