{"id":173756,"date":"2025-06-10T19:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-10T19:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/173756\/"},"modified":"2025-06-10T19:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T19:47:10","slug":"physicists-say-light-can-be-made-from-nothing-and-now-they-have-the-simulation-to-prove-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/173756\/","title":{"rendered":"Physicists Say Light Can Be Made From Nothing and Now They Have the Simulation to Prove It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Credit: ZME Science\/SORA.<\/p>\n

If you could sit perfectly still in a patch of space far from any stars, planets, or particles \u2014 utter emptiness \u2014 you might expect nothing at all to happen. No heat, no sound, no light. But the universe is never truly still. And the vacuum is never truly empty.<\/p>\n

In the strange realm of quantum physics, even the vacuum seethes with invisible potential. Inside the apparent nothingness, so-called \u201cvirtual\u201d particles flicker into and out of existence too quickly to see. Now, for the first time, physicists have simulated what it would look like if a flash of light were conjured from that void by making these invisible tremors suddenly visible. <\/p>\n

This feat, led by researchers at the University of Oxford and the Instituto Superior T\u00e9cnico in Lisbon, doesn\u2019t just tickle the imagination. It marks a major step toward realizing one of quantum electrodynamics\u2019 (QED) most bizarre predictions: that light can interact with itself in a vacuum, producing new beams from \u201cnothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is not just an academic curiosity \u2014 it is a major step toward experimental confirmation of quantum effects that until now have been mostly theoretical,\u201d said Professor Peter Norreys, a co-author of the study published in Communications Physics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The simulations used in this study offer scientists an unprecedented real-time, three-dimensional window into quantum vacuum effects. They illuminate a world where laser beams \u2014 focused and intense enough \u2014 can stir virtual particles into action and cause photons to scatter off one another like billiard balls.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a simulation of what some still believe to be the impossible. And it might soon be confirmed in real life.<\/p>\n

From Bizarre Theory to Simulated Reality<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a>Illustration of photon-photon scattering in the laboratory. Two green petawatt lasers beams collide at the focus with a third red beam to polarise the quantum vacuum. This allows a fourth blue laser beam to be generated, with a unique direction and colour, which conserves momemtum and energy. Credit: Zixin (Lily) Zhang<\/p>\n

At the core of this work lies a quantum phenomenon known as vacuum four-wave mixing. In classical physics, light beams pass through each other undisturbed. But in the quantum vacuum \u2014 brimming with virtual particles that blink in and out of existence \u2014 intense electromagnetic fields can alter this behavior.<\/p>\n

Using powerful computing tools built into the OSIRIS simulation framework, the team recreated this interaction in extraordinary detail. They showed how three intersecting virtual laser beams could coax a fourth beam into existence, purely from the altered vacuum. It\u2019s a process akin to summoning a spark from thin air.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to capture the full range of quantum signatures,\u201d said lead author Zixin Zhang, a doctoral student at Oxford. \u201cOur computer program gives us a time-resolved, 3D window into quantum vacuum interactions that were previously out of reach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The simulation does more than confirm what theory has long predicted. It reveals how real-world factors \u2014 like imperfect beam alignment or asymmetries in focus \u2014 might influence the result. That\u2019s essential knowledge for labs preparing to test these effects using ultra-powerful lasers just coming online.<\/p>\n

The Era of Extreme Light<\/p>\n

This study couldn\u2019t have arrived at a better time. Around the globe, a new generation of laser facilities is pushing the limits of power and precision. The UK\u2019s Vulcan 20-20<\/a>, the European Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI)<\/a> in Romania, and China\u2019s 100-petawatt SHINE laser<\/a> are among the elite machines poised to recreate extreme conditions where these quantum effects could finally be observed directly.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s work provides critical guidance for these upcoming experiments. Their simulations use realistic Gaussian beam shapes and track how the quantum vacuum evolves not just in space, but in time. That matters, because experimentalists need to know precisely when and where to look.<\/p>\n

Crucially, the simulations also reproduce vacuum birefringence \u2014 another exotic prediction where light\u2019s polarization changes as it passes through strong electromagnetic fields. That too had previously eluded direct observation in laboratory settings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe provide precise estimates of the interaction time and size,\u201d the authors wrote. Their models even account for subtle distortions in the resulting light pulse, such as astigmatism, which emerges when beams intersect at oblique angles.<\/p>\n

The Quantum Vacuum Is Not Empty<\/p>\n

The \u201cempty\u201d vacuum, in the view of quantum field theory, is anything but vacant. It\u2019s a dynamic arena filled with flickering virtual particles \u2014 electron-positron pairs that exist fleetingly thanks to the uncertainty principle<\/a>. Under normal conditions, they\u2019re unobservable. But fire a sufficiently intense laser, and they start to matter.<\/p>\n

Beyond confirming long-held predictions, these simulations open doors to discovering new physics. The framework can be adapted to search for exotic particles like axions or millicharged particles \u2014 candidates for dark matter that might subtly alter how light behaves in a vacuum.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA wide range of planned experiments at the most advanced laser facilities will be greatly assisted by our new computational method,\u201d said Professor Luis Silva, co-author and physicist at Instituto Superior T\u00e9cnico.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As for now, the team\u2019s simulations have already delivered one tangible outcome: a clearer picture of how to detect a flicker of light conjured from the darkness.<\/p>\n

And if nature cooperates, that detection could come sooner than many imagined.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHaving thoroughly benchmarked the simulation,\u201d Zhang said, \u201cwe can now turn our attention to more complex and exploratory scenarios \u2013 including exotic laser beam structures and flying-focus pulses.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: ZME Science\/SORA. If you could sit perfectly still in a patch of space far from any stars,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3845],"tags":[74,11112,70,413,16,71977,15,71978],"class_list":{"0":"post-173756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-physics","9":"tag-quantum-physics","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-uncertainty-principle","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-virtual-particles"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114660798938720260","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}