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Attosecond nonlinear quantum electrodynamics in laser-driven plasmas via two-photon synchrotron emission

Vedin Dewan1, Aleksei M. Zheltikov2,*, and Julia M. Mikhailova1,†

  • 1Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
  • 2Institute of Quantum Science and Engineering, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA

  • *Contact author: zheltikov@tamu.edu
  • †Contact author: j.mikhailova@princeton.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033249 – Published 1 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ycbs-ksxh

Abstract

Ultrafast strong-field laser-plasma physics is shown to offer a promising framework for relativistic nonlinear quantum electrodynamics (QED). As one of its key advantages, this approach to relativistic nonlinear QED does not require an external beam of relativistic particles. Instead, high-energy electrons are produced in this setting as a part of ultrafast strong-field laser-plasma interactions. An intense ultrashort laser pulse generates and accelerates dense electron bunches to relativistic energies, giving rise to photon-pair emission confined to the nanometer scale in space and the attosecond scale in time. As a lowest-order nonlinear QED process, relativistic electrons in laser-driven plasmas are shown to give rise to attosecond bursts of two-photon emission, providing an ultrabroadband source of correlated photon pairs. As a physically insightful estimate, the rate of this two-photon emission is expressed via a product α2γωturn, where α is the fine-structure constant, γ is the Lorentz factor, and ωturn is the local relativistic curvature frequency. Photon pairs with strongest correlations, providing a resource for photon entanglement, are emitted at a much lower rate, estimated as α2γ2ωturnE⊥/ES, where E⊥ is the laser electromagnetic field, determining the transverse Lorentz force, and ES is the Schwinger critical field. Our study offers a clear framework for isolating quantum aspects of laser-driven relativistic plasma electrodynamics from their classical counterparts, enabling a physically justifiable approach to the analysis of nonlinear QED phenomena in complex laser-plasma interactions driven by ultrashort high-intensity laser pulses. With purely quantum-field effects isolated via α2 and E⊥/ES factors, the role of classical plasma analysis in this framework is to simulate spatially and temporally resolved electron trajectories, thus providing direct in situ probes for local γ and ωturn factors of plasma electrons. At laser intensities corresponding to relativistic laser amplitudes a0∼20–200, accessible at multipetawatt laser facilities, laser-solid interactions drive electrons to γ∼100, and their correlated attosecond photon-pair emission emerges as a previously unexplored quantum light source competing with classical coherent synchrotron emission.

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Phys. Rev. Research 8, 033249– Published 1 September, 2026
  • Received 9 April 2026
  • Accepted 25 June 2026
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