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Hamamatsu Corp. - Earth Innovations LB 2/24

X-Rays May Pluck Pairs from Vacuum

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Daniel S. Burgess

According to quantum electrodynamics, a vacuum is never empty but rather is seething with virtual pairs of electrons and positrons. A team from Universität Tübingen in Tübingen, Germany, and Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Ill., predicts that the x-ray free-electron lasers under development at Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany, and at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, Calif., will offer the vacuum sufficient energy to generate real pairs of particles. Using a formula developed by Julian Schwinger in 1951, the researchers calculate that an external...Read full article

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