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Newsletter May 2025

Dear colleagues and friends,

we are glad to provide you with the May 2025 issue of the newsletter of the Helmholtz Institute Jena.

Below you find informations and news about recent activities of our institute.

Kind Regards,

Helmholtz Institute Jena

Towards a vacuum birefringence experiment at the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields

In October 2023 an EMMI Workshop titled "Towards a Vacuum Birefringence Experiment at the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields" was held at the Helmholtz Institute in Jena. The goal of this meeting was to reach agreement on the most promising experimental setup for a vacuum birefringence discovery experiment to be set up at the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (HIBEF) at the European XFEL (EuXFEL) and to work out a roadmap towards the first detection of vacuum birefringence in a concerted effort of theory and experiment.

This workshop initiated the formation of an, yet informal and nascent, collaboration of experimentalists and theorists from different institutes and universities which are members and partners of the International User Consortium of the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields, the BIREF@HIBEF Collaboration. Recently the Letter of Intent of this collaboration was published in the Journal of High Power Laser  Science and Engineering [1].

The Letter of Intent [1] sets out the intention to perform a first measurement of vacuum birefringence with real photons as a flagship experiment at the HED-HIBEF instrument. Photons from the EuXFEL will be scattered at regions of the quantum vacuum polarised by the optical Relativistic Laser at XFEL (ReLaX). Their polarisation will be measured and compared to predictions from quantum electrodynamics (QED). Counting the number of scattered photons that have flipped or not flipped their polarisation allows experimental determination of the low-energy effective field theory couplings of QED, first calculated over 80 years ago. Measurement of vacuum birefringence with real photons can thus be viewed as a first step on the way to harnessing the nonlinearity of the quantum vacuum.

The fundamental physics prediction of vacuum birefringence represents a prime example of a fascinating and a priori counter-intuitive phenomenon that can happen when a seemingly trivial state (“the vacuum”) is subjected to extreme conditions (“ultra-intense electromagnetic fields”). Its detection with state-of-the-art technology constitutes a formidable challenge and is at the edge of what is currently possible. The BIREF@HIBEF collaboration brings together experts in strong-field QED, x-ray optics, high-intensity lasers, and laser-plasma physics and thus adopts an interdisciplinary approach to meeting this challenge and performing a discovery experiment.

 

­­Reference:

[1] BIREF@HIBEF  Collaboration: "Towards a vacuum birefringence experiment at the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (Letter of Intent)", High Power Laser Sci. Eng. 13, e7 (2025), doi:10.1017/hpl.2024.70.

News and Announcements

11th joint RS-APS and HGS-HIRe Lecture Week

From November 25th until 28th 2024 the 11th  joint RS-APS and HGS-HIRe Lecture Week took place in Jena. Organized in cooperation with the Helmholtz AI Consultant Team…
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Upcoming events

DateTitleLocation
04.06.2025 RS-APS Seminar Online
12.06.2025 Institutsseminar Seminarraum HI-Jena, Fröbelstieg 3
30.06. – 04.07.2025 15th European Conference on Atoms, Molecules and Photons (ECAMP2025) Innsbruck, AT
03.07.2025 Institutsseminar Seminarraum HI-Jena, Fröbelstieg 3
29.07. – 05.08.2025 34th International Conference on Photonic, Electronic and Atomic Collisions (ICPEAC2025) Sapporo, JP
15.09. – 18.09.2025 22nd SPARC Topical Workshop University of Ioannina, Griechenland

Recently finished theses

Recent publications

Ringleb S, Kiffer M, Stöhlker T, Vogel M. Collisional thermalisation behaviour of highly-charged-ion plasmas in a Penning trap. Journal of physics / B. 2025 May; 58(9):095202 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Schmelz M, Shvab V, Peiselt K, Kunert J, Zakosarenko V, Stöhlker T, Oelsner G, Stolz R. Highly Sensitive DC SQUID Arrays for the Readout of Optical TES at mK Temperatures. IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. 2025 May; 35(3):1 - 4.      [DOI]      [File] 
Lenski M, Xu Q, Gierschke P, Wang Z, Heuermann T, Jauregui C, Limpert J. Average-power scaling of in-band pumped, Tm-doped, fiber laser systems for high peak power pulsed operation. Optics express. 2025 Apr.; 33(7):16029 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Dellmann SF, Glorius J, Litvinov YA, Reifarth R, Varga L, Aliotta M, Amjad F, Blaum K, Bott L, Brandau C, Brückner B, Bruno CG, Chen R-, Davinson T, Dickel T, Dillmann I, Dmytriev D, Erbacher P, Forstner O, Freire-Fernández D, Geissel H, Göbel K, Griffin CJ, Grisenti RE, Gumberidze A, Haettner E, Hagmann S, Heftrich T, Heil M, Heß R, Hillenbrand P, Hornung C, Joseph R, Jurado B, Kazanseva E, Khasawneh K, Knöbel R, Kostyleva D, Kozhuharov C, Kulikov I, Kuzminchuk N, Kurtulgil D, Langer C, Leckenby G, Lederer-Woods C, Lestinsky M, Litvinov S, Löher B, Lorentz BA, Lorenz E, Marsh J, Menz E, Morgenroth T, Mukha I, Petridis N, Popp U, Psaltis A, Purushothaman S, Rocco E, Roy P, Sanjari MS, Scheidenberger C, Sguazzin M, Sidhu RS, Spillmann U, Steck M, Stöhlker T, Surzhykov A, Swartz JA, Tanaka Y, Törnqvist H, Vescovi D, Volknandt M, Weick H, Weigand M, Woods PJ, Yamaguchi T, Zhao J. First Proton-Induced Cross Sections on a Stored Rare Ion Beam: Measurement of Te 118 ( p , γ ) for Explosive Nucleosynthesis. Physical review letters. 2025 Apr.; 134(14):142701.      [DOI]      [File] 
Pfäfflein P, Weber G, Allgeier S, Andelkovic Z, Bernitt S, Bondarev A, Borovik A, Duval L, Fleischmann A, Forstner O, Friedrich M, Glorius J, Gumberidze A, Hahn C, Herfurth F, Hengstler D, Herdrich MO, Hillenbrand P, Kalinin A, Kiffer M, Kroeger FM, Kubullek M, Kuntz P, Lestinsky M, Litvinov YA, Löher B, Menz EB, Over T, Petridis N, Ringleb S, Sidhu RS, Spillmann U, Trotsenko S, Warczak A, Zhu B, Enss C, Stöhlker T. Quantum Electrodynamics in Strong Electromagnetic Fields: Substate Resolved K α Transition Energies in Heliumlike Uranium. Physical review letters. 2025 Apr.; 134(15):153001.      [DOI]      [File] 
Hikosaka Y, Fritzsche S. Amplified Collective Auger Decay of Double Inner-Shell Vacancy in Xe. Physical review letters. 2025 Mar.; 134(10):103001.      [DOI]      [File] 
Fritzsche S. Atomic input for modeling ionic mixtures in astrophysical plasma. The European physical journal / A. 2025 Mar.; 61(3):63.      [DOI]      [File] 
Huang H, Yuan Y, Hosea N, Si R, Fritzsche S. Dielectronic and tri-electronic recombination strengths of low-lying resonances and plasma rate coefficients for beryllium-like argon ions. The European physical journal / D. 2025 Mar.; 79(3):18.      [DOI]      [File] 
Fritzsche S, Huang HK, Huang Z-, Schippers S, Wen WQ, Wu ZW. Dielectronic recombination into high-n Rydberg shells. The European physical journal / D. 2025 Mar.; 79(3):22.      [DOI]      [File] 
Chakma R, Fritzsche S, Hauschild K, Lopez-Martens A. Geant4 atomic relaxation data for transfermium nuclei (Z = 101–104). Nuclear instruments $&$ methods in physics research / Section A. 2025 Mar.; 1072170144 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Bernitt S, Kuhn S, Togawa M, Steinbrügge R, Shah C, Leutenegger MA, Micke P, Stöhlker T, Crespo López-Urrutia JR. Laboratory X-ray astrophysics at ultrabrilliant light sources with PolarX-EBIT. Journal of Instrumentation. 2025 Mar.; 20(03):C03030 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Ahmadiniaz N, Bähtz C, Benediktovitch A, Bömer C, Bocklage L, Cowan TE, Edwards J, Evans S, Franchino Viñas S, Gies H, Göde S, Görs J, Grenzer J, Hernandez Acosta U, Heinzl T, Hilz P, Hippler W, Huang LG, Humphries O, Karbstein F, Khademi P, King B, Kluge T, Kohlfürst C, Krebs D, Laso-García A, Lötzsch R, Macleod AJ, Marx-Glowna B, Mosman EA, Nakatsutsumi M, Paulus GG, Rahul SV, Randolph L, Röhlsberger R, Rohringer N, Sävert A, Sadashivaiah S, Sauerbrey R, Schlenviogt H-, Schmidt SM, Schramm U, Schützhold R, Schwinkendorf J-, Seipt D, Šmíd M, Stöhlker T, Toncian T, Valialshchikov M, Wipf A, Zastrau U, Zepf M. Towards a vacuum birefringence experiment at the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields (Letter of Intent of the BIREF@HIBEF Collaboration). High power laser science and engineering. 2025 Mar.; 13e7.      [DOI]      [File] 
Fitzgarrald R, Cardarelli JA, Campbell PT, Fourmaux S, Balcazar MD, Antoine AF, Beier NF, Qian Q, Hussein AE, Kettle B, Klein SR, Krushelnick K, Li YF, Mangles SPD, Sarri G, Seipt D, Senthilkumaran V, Streeter MJV, Thomas AGR, Ma Y. Angularly resolved spectral reconstruction of x rays via filter pack attenuation. Review of scientific instruments. 2025 Feb.; 96(2):023103.      [DOI]      [File] 
Schönberg A, Rajhans S, Escoto E, Khodakovskiy N, Hariton V, Farace B, Põder K, Raab A, Westerberg S, Merdanov M, Viotti A, Arnold CL, Leemans WP, Hartl I, Heyl C. Compact, folded multi-pass cells for energy scaling of post-compression. Photonics research. 2025 Feb.; 13(3):761 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Sguazzin M, Pibernat J, Swartz JA, Grieser M, Glorius J, Litvinov YA, Adamczewski-Musch J, Alfaurt P, Ascher P, Audouin L, Berthelot C, Blank B, Blaum K, Brückner B, Dellmann S, Dillmann I, Domingo-Pardo C, Dupuis M, Erbacher P, Flayol M, Forstner O, Freire-Fernández D, Gerbaux M, Giovinazzo J, Grévy S, Griffin CJ, Gumberidze A, Heil S, Heinz A, Hess R, Kurtulgil D, Kurz N, Leckenby G, Litvinov S, Lorentz BA, Méot V, Michaud J, Pérard S, Petridis N, Popp U, Ramos D, Reifarth R, Roche M, Sanjari MS, Sidhu RS, Spillmann U, Steck M, Stöhlker T, Thomas B, Thulliez L, Versteegen M, Włoch B. First Measurement of the Neutron-Emission Probability with a Surrogate Reaction in Inverse Kinematics at a Heavy-Ion Storage Ring. Physical review letters. 2025 Feb.; 134(7):072501.      [DOI]      [File] 
Ramakrishna S, Fritzsche S. Interaction Between Atoms and Structured Light Fields. Atoms. 2025 Feb.; 13(2):20 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Travnikova O, Trinter F, Agåker M, Visentin G, Andersson J, Kjellsson L, Ismail I, Velasquez N, Koulentianos D, Harder M, Yin Z, Söderström J, Marchenko T, Guillemin R, McGinnis OD, Ågren H, Fritzsche S, Simon M, Rubensson J, Nordgren J. Neutral Sulfur Atom Formation in Decay of Deep Core Holes in SF 6. Physical review letters. 2025 Feb.; 134(6):063003.      [DOI]      [File] 
Seipt D, Samuelsson M, Blackburn T. Nonlinear Breit–Wheeler pair production using polarized photons from inverse Compton scattering. Plasma physics and controlled fusion. 2025 Feb.; 67(3):035002 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Horst M, Andelkovic Z, Brandau C, Chen RJ, Freire Fernández D, Geppert C, Glorius J, Hannen V, Heß R, Imgram P, Klammes S, König K, Leckenby G, Litvinov S, Litvinov YA, Lorentz B, Meisner J, Mohr K, Müller P, Passon S, Ratajczyk T, Rausch S, Roßbach J, Sánchez R, Sanjari S, Sidhu RS, Spillmann U, Steck M, Stöhlker T, Ueberholz K, Weinheimer C, Winters D, Nörtershäuser W. Storage-ring laser spectroscopy of accelerator-produced hydrogen-like 208Bi82+. Nature Physics. 2025 Apr. 28;      [DOI]      [File] 
Watt R, Kettle B, Gerstmayr E, King B, Alejo A, Astbury S, Baird C, Bohlen S, Campbell M, Colgan C, Dannheim D, Gregory C, Harsh H, Hatfield P, Hinojosa J, Hollatz D, Katzir Y, Morton J, Murphy CD, Nurnberg A, Osterhoff J, Pérez-Callejo G, Poder K, Rajeev PP, Roedel C, Roeder F, Salgado FC, Samarin GM, Sarri G, Seidel A, Spindloe C, Steinke S, Streeter MJV, Thomas AGR, Underwood C, Wu W, Zepf M, Rose SJ, Mangles SPD. Bounding elastic photon-photon scattering at s ≈ 1 MeV using a laser-plasma platform. Physics letters / B. 2025 Jan.; 861139247 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Alencastro Puls A, Kuske J, Hansen CJ, Lombardo L, Visentin G, Arcones Segovia A, Melo R, Reichert M, Bonifacio P, Caffau E, Fritzsche S. Chemical Evolution of R-process Elements in Stars (CERES). Astronomy and astrophysics. 2025 Jan.; 693A294 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Marmier C, Seegert N, Karbstein F. Impact of background field localization on vacuum polarization effects. Physical review / D. 2025 Jan.; 111(1):016005.      [DOI]      [File] 
Hofer C, Bausch D, Fürst L, Wei Z, Högner M, Butler TP, Gebhardt M, Heuermann T, Gaida C, Maiti KS, Huber M, Fill E, Limpert J, Krausz F, Karpowicz N, Pupeza I. Linear field-resolved spectroscopy approaching ultimate detection sensitivity. Optics express. 2025 Jan.; 33(1):1 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Gies H, Karbstein F, Maiwald L. Phase transition analogs in laser collisions with a dark-field setup. Physical review / D. 2025 Jan.; 111(1):016027.      [DOI]      [File] 
Hesselbach P, Lütgert J, Bagnoud V, Belikov R, Humphries O, Lindqvist B, Schaumann G, Sokolov A, Tauschwitz A, Varentsov D, Weyrich K, Winkler B, Yu X, Zielbauer B, Kraus D, Riley D, Major Z, Neumayer P. Platform for laser-driven X-ray diagnostics of heavy-ion heated extreme states of matter. Matter and radiation at extremes. 2025 Jan.; 10(1):017803.      [DOI]      [File] 
Stoyanov LI, Zhang Y, Dreischuh A, Paulus GG. Controllable beam break-up, spectral broadening, and coherent beam recombination using arrays of singular beams. Optics express. 2024 Dec.; 32(27):48758 -.      [DOI]      [File] 
Russell BK, Bulanov SS, Qian Q, Arran C, Blackburn TG, Bulanov SV, Grittani GM, Mangles SPD, Ridgers CP, Seipt D, Thomas AGR. Measuring signatures in photon angular spectra to distinguish nonlinear Compton scattering models. Physical review / A. 2024 Dec.; 110(6):062822.      [DOI]      [File] 
Wagner R, Ilchen M, Douguet N, Schmidt P, Wieland N, Callegari C, Delk Z, Demidovich A, De Ninno G, Di Fraia M, Hofbrucker J, Manfredda M, Music V, Plekan O, Prince KC, Rivas DE, Zangrando M, Grum-Grzhimailo AN, Bartschat K, Meyer M. Circular dichroism in multiphoton ionization of resonantly excited helium ions near channel closing. Scientific reports. 2024 Nov.; 14(1):27232.      [DOI]      [File] 
Sahoo AK, Fritzsche S, Sharma L. Computation of effective collision strengths for plasma applications using JAC. The European physical journal / Plus. 2024 Nov.; 139(11):986.      [DOI]      [File] 
Kiffer M, Ringleb S, Stöhlker T, Vogel M. Non-destructive characterization of individual particle bunches by a resistive-cooling measurement in a Penning trap. Journal of applied physics. 2024 Nov.; 136(18):184901.      [DOI]      [File] 
Gao Y, Wang P, Liu B, Xu S, Chen S, Shou Y, Liu J, Mei Z, Cao Z, Xu T, Liu Z, Pan Z, Kong D, Peng Z, Liang Y, Song T, Chen X, Wu Q, Zhang Y, Zhao J, Qi W, Deng Z, Zhao Y, Wu F, Zepf M, Ramis R, Bolton PR, Yan X, Ma W, Schreiber J. All-optical method for generating transient microstructured targets in laser ion acceleration. Physical review research. 2024 Oct.; 6(4):L042031.      [DOI]      [File] 
Wang S, Brandau C, Fritzsche S, Fuchs S, Harman Z, Kozhuharov C, Müller A, Steck M, Schippers S. Breit interaction in dielectronic recombination of hydrogenlike xenon ions: storage-ring experiment and theory. The European physical journal / D. 2024 Oct.; 78(10):122.      [DOI]      [File] 
Correa J, Ignatenko A, Pennicard D, Lange S, Fridman S, Karl S, Lohse L, Senfftleben B, Sergeev I, Velten S, Prajapat D, Bocklage L, Bromberger H, Samartsev A, Chumakov A, Rüffer R, Zanthier J, Röhlsberger R, Graafsma H. TEMPUS, a Timepix4-based system for the event-based detection of X-rays. Journal of synchrotron radiation. 2024 Jul.; 31(5):1209 - 1216.      [DOI]      [File] 
Lütgert J, Hesselbach P, Schörner M, Bagnoud V, Belikov R, Drechsel P, Heuser B, Humphries OS, Katrik P, Lindqvist B, Qu C, Redmer R, Riley D, Schaumann G, Schumacher S, Tauschwitz A, Varentsov D, Weyrich K, Yu X, Zielbauer B, Slattery-Major Z, Neumayer P, Kraus D. Temperature and structure measurements of heavy-ion-heated diamond using in situ X-ray diagnostics. Matter and radiation at extremes. 2024 Jun.; 9(4):047802.      [DOI]      [File] 
Nazary H, Metternich M, Schumacher D, Neufeld F, Grimm SJ, Brabetz C, Kroll F, Brack F-, Blazevic A, Schramm U, Bagnoud V, Roth M. Towards ion stopping power experiments with the laser-driven LIGHT beamline. Journal of plasma physics. 2024 May; 90(3):905900302.      [DOI]      [File] 
Belikov R, Merges D, Varentsov D, Major Z, Neumayer P, Hesselbach P, Schanz M, Winkler B. Fast Multi-Wavelength Pyrometer for Dynamic Temperature Measurements. International journal of thermophysics. 2024 Feb.; 45(2):29.      [DOI]      [File] 
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