Powerful lasers are letting scientists peer into the “empty” vacuum of space, and it turns out that emptiness isn’t empty at all.
Researchers at the University of Oxford and Portugal’s Instituto Superior Técnico have run the first real-time, 3D computer simulations showing how ultra-intense laser beams can stir up the so-called quantum vacuum, a realm seething with fleeting electron-positron pairs.
Their model captures a mind-bending effect called vacuum four-wave mixing. Picture three tightly focused laser pulses converging: their combined electromagnetic fields jolt those virtual particles, making photons ricochet off one another like billiard balls. The payoff is a fourth laser beam—light literally emerging from darkness—that could expose brand-new physics at extreme energies.
“This is not just an academic curiosity—it is a major step toward experimental confirmation of quantum effects that until now have been mostly theoretical,” said study co-author Professor Peter Norreys, Department of Physics, University of Oxford.
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