Atomic Physics

Research with ion and antiproton beams has opened up new opportunities for many areas besides hadron and nuclear physics. A field which especially benefited from the availability of highly-charged heavy ions and antiprotons is atomic physics.

Atom physics with high-engergy heavy ions

Atomic physics phenomena are generally very well understood in terms of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) - the theory of the electromagnetic interaction. QED is regarded as one of most accurate and best-confirmed theory in physics. The bulk of QED tests performed so far addressed the regime of low and medium-strong fields. In the area of very strong electromagnetic fields, there still exist uncertainties concerning the precise QED formalism.

Ultrastrong electromagnetic fields occur in highly-charged heavy ions, e.g. hydrogen-like uranium-91⁺ and can be further increased in experiments with fast heavy ions passing each other. The field strengths achieved in those experiments can well exceed the critical value for spontaneous electron-positron creation out of the vacuum. The new project will open up unique opportunities for research in these areas of ultra-strong field physics and QED tests at very high fields.