Led by Henri Vincenti in collaboration with DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Germany) and the University of Rochester (USA), the NP-QEP project aims at testing the predictions of quantum electrodynamics (QED), the theory of light-matter interaction, in unexplored extreme regimes:
- The strong-field regime begins when the light field amplitude reaches the vacuum breaking threshold, corresponding to the Schwinger field limit. This intensity level has never been experimentally achieved.
- The fully non-perturbative regime of QED remains unexplored, thus constituting a frontier of contemporary physics. Leveraging key innovations and cutting-edge infrastructures at participating institutions, researchers will deploy and analyze a new class of laboratory experiments dedicated to the exploration of the strong and non-perturbative regimes of QED. These experiments should allow reaching field amplitudes up to 1,000 times the Schwinger limit.
These novel experiments will help validating long-standing strong-field QED predictions and fostering the emergence of new theoretical frameworks in quantum physics, which is at the heart of many current scientific advances.
