Vortices in the Ocean of Vacuum: How Spin Dictates the Birth of Matter ⚡ экспресс
Physicists studied how spin (intrinsic rotation) influences the creation of electron-positron pairs from vacuum under the action of laser pulses. With a small delay between pulses, patterns appear, resembling the chains of vortices behind a moving object. This allowed them to see how matter emerges from emptiness, obeying strict quantum rules. Could 'emptiness' conceal ordered structures?
According to the Standard Model, the vacuum is not emptiness but an ocean of virtual ghost particles. An ultra-strong electromagnetic field, like a storm, yanks electron-positron pairs into reality.
By controlling the delay between two laser flashes, you can get either chaotic ripples or orderly vortex lattices — like whirlpools behind a rock in a river.
The shape of these whirlpools is dictated by spin — the intrinsic rotation of particles, like a tiny spinning top. An electron and positron spinning in the same direction create a two-pole vortex; in opposite directions, a four-lobed pattern. This makes the vortices an ultrasensitive spectroscopic detector.
Amazingly, even when vortices break down and entropy (a measure of disorder) grows, the spin signature remains, like a fingerprint on water. The discovery, building on the ideas of Schwinger, Dirac, and Feynman, allows the study of extreme matter.
🎯 The most powerful lasers still can't reach the Schwinger limit — the field capable of birthing pairs from absolute emptiness. However, the trick of colliding pulses lets us see this effect without waiting for record-breaking powers.