Studies of high-field QED with the LUXE experiment at the European XFEL

Abstract

The LUXE experiment aims at studying high-field QED in electron-laser and photon-laser interactions, with the 16.5 GeV electron beam of the European XFEL and a laser beam with power of up to 350 TW. The experiment will measure the spectra of electrons and photons in non-linear Compton scattering where production rates in excess of $10^9$ are expected per 1 Hz bunch crossing. At the same time positrons from pair creation in either the two-step trident process or the Breit--Wheeler process will be measured, where the expected rates range from $10^{-3}$ to $10^4$ per bunch crossing, depending on the laser power and focus. These measurements have to be performed in the presence of low-energy high radiation-background. To meet these challenges, for high-rate electron and photon fluxes, the experiment will use Cherenkov radiation detectors, scintillator screens, sapphire sensors as well as lead-glass monitors for back-scattering off the beam-dump. A four-layer silicon-pixel tracker and a compact sampling electromagnetic calorimeter will be used to measure the positron spectra. The layout of the experiment and the expected performance under the harsh radiation conditions will be presented.

arXiv comment8 pages, 6 figures, 22nd International Workshop on Radiation Imaging Detectors

References in corpus (8)

• Experimental signatures of the quantum nature of radiation reaction in the field of an ultra-intense laser
• Conceptual Design Report for the LUXE Experiment
• Nonlinear Compton scattering of polarised photons in plane-wave backgrounds
• Letter of Intent for the LUXE Experiment
• Performance and Moli`ere radius measurements using a compact prototype of LumiCal in an electron test beam
• A magnetic spectrometer to measure electron bunches accelerated at AWAKE
• Design and Construction of a Cherenkov Detector for Compton Polarimetry at the ILC
• Investigation of a direction sensitive sapphire detector stack at the 5 GeV electron beam at DESY-II

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Fully polarized nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production in pulsed plane waves
• Optimal photon polarization toward the observation of the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production