Scientists have demonstrated after decades of theorising how light interacts with vacuum, recreating a bizarre phenomenon predicted by quantum physics.

Oxford University physicists ran simulations to test how intense laser beams alter vacuum, a state once thought to be empty but predicted by quantum physics to be full of fleeting, temporary particle pairs.

Classical physics predicts that light beams pass through each other undisturbed. But quantum mechanics holds that even what we know as vacuum is always brimming with fleeting particles, which pop in and out of existence, causing light to be scattered.