{"id":196381,"date":"2024-09-19T01:29:44","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T06:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/deriving-fundamental-constants-from-three-beam-collisions"},"modified":"2024-09-19T01:29:44","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T06:29:44","slug":"deriving-fundamental-constants-from-three-beam-collisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/deriving-fundamental-constants-from-three-beam-collisions","title":{"rendered":"Deriving Fundamental Constants from Three-Beam Collisions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/deriving-fundamental-constants-from-three-beam-collisions.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A long-standing prediction of quantum electrodynamics is that high-energy photons can scatter off each other. However, this process has yet to be observed because dedicated experiments have an extremely low signal-to-noise ratio. Now Alexander Macleod at the Extreme Light Infrastructure, Czech Republic, and Ben King at the University of Plymouth, UK, have designed an experiment that could achieve a high-enough signal-to-noise ratio to measure the phenomenon [<a href=\"https:\/\/physics.aps.org\/articles\/v17\/s109#c1\" class=\"\">1<\/a>]. Researchers could use such measurements to derive the values of fundamental constants in quantum electrodynamics and then set constraints on various extensions to the standard model of particle physics.<\/p>\n<p>Conventionally, scientists have looked for evidence of photon\u2013photon scattering by colliding pairs of laser beams. Macleod and King instead propose colliding three laser beams: an x-ray beam and two high-power optical beams. The two optical beams provide the photons that scatter off each other, and the x-ray beam imparts a momentum kick to the scattered photons. This kick alters the trajectory of the photons and spatially separates them from much of the experimental background. As a result, in the detection region, the signal-to-noise ratio is higher than that of two-beam setups.<\/p>\n<p>Macleod and King consider how their setup could be realized in two currently existing research facilities: the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser facility in Germany, as part of the planned BIREF@HIBEF experiment, and the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact Free Electron Laser in Japan. They then show how the technology used in these facilities should be sufficient to measure photon\u2013photon scattering. Macleod says that such a demonstration would be important for researchers working on \u201chigh-power lasers, strong-field physics, and quantum electrodynamics.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A long-standing prediction of quantum electrodynamics is that high-energy photons can scatter off each other. However, this process has yet to be observed because dedicated experiments have an extremely low signal-to-noise ratio. Now Alexander Macleod at the Extreme Light Infrastructure, Czech Republic, and Ben King at the University of Plymouth, UK, have designed an experiment [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}