NA63 experiment

This experiment is part of the SPS research programme and began taking data in 2010 with Mr Ulrik Ingerslev Uggerhoj as spokesperson.

[2] In such fields, an electron may gain an energy corresponding to the production of a new electron-positron pair, if it is transported over a distance given by the quantum mechanical uncertainty of its location : Δd= ƛ = ħ/mc.

Using a special approach employing crystalline targets and energetic beams from the SPS (~ 100GeV), NA63 has managed to test processes at such fields in the laboratory.

An electron entering an electric field is accelerated, and therefore must lose part of its energy in the form of a photon via the Bremsstrahlung effect - the process by which a charged particle emits electromagnetic radiation when being decelerated upon passing an atom, for instance in a solid material.

In the classical theory, the solutions of the equations of motion lead to absurd consequences, e.g conflicts with either energy conservation or causality.

[7] The effects of strong fields and emission times are relevant in many other branches of physics, ranging from the so-called “bubble-regime” in plasma wakefields used for extremely high-gradient particle acceleration, through astrophysical objects such as magnetars (heavily magnetized neutron stars) to intense lasers and heavy-ion collisions.

Finally, although a much ‘cleaner’ environment can be achieved with electron-laser interactions to address the problem of radiation reaction experimentally, lasers of sufficient intensity to enable thorough investigations are still some years, perhaps decades, ahead of us.