This volume of the Review of Laser Engineering contains the special issues on “Science Using Ultrahigh Electro-magnetic Fields”. We can find seven review articles and one original paper related to this title. The topics cover the background history and future direction in high intensity laser and its applications, the status of ELI-NP institute with a highest laser peak power in Romania, the physics of vacuum polarization, heavy ion collisions, microbubble implosions, strong magnetic fields of magnetors, and dissipative dynamical Casmir effect all related to strong electro-magnetic or magnetic fields induced by intense lasers or existing in neutron stars.

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The realization of a new set of physical behaviors by intense photon flux (such as laser pulse) is opening a new frontier (or frontiers) of high field science. Because of this unique dictation of laser pulse in triggering more coherent interactions and access to new parameter regimes of interaction between laser and matter, high field science provides the structure formation and extreme high gradient acceleration of particles. Some typical examples are mentioned.

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The construction of large laser institutes with ultra-intense laser systems has been approved by the European Commission for a structural fund of about 850 million euros for 2011 ~ 2012, to be built in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Romania. This challenging proposal is the result of the invention of chirped-pulse amplification by Dr. Gerard Mourou (France) and Prof. Donna Strickland (Canada) [1]. Based on recent technological advances toward the realization of ultra-intense laser fields, their focused intensity I0 ~ 10 23 W cm− 2 or more is expected to be reached. With the aim of making a broad contribution to the national, European, and international scientific community, Romania has initiated the construction of the Extreme Light Infrastructure -Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) in Magurele near the capital is established under Horia Hulubei National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFIN-HH). The mission of ELI-NP is to cover scientific research at the frontier of knowledge, including two areas: the first is the study of nuclear photonics, high-field quantum electrodynamics, and lasers related to vacuum effects using the high power laser system (HPLS) of 10 PW output. The second is the establishment of inverse Compton backscattering phenomena and unexplored nuclear physics phenomena by the high energy gamma system making use of collisions of high-brightness, intense γ -ray beams (E = 19.5 MeV) with intense lasers.

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Photons can be diffracted by a polarized vacuum under a strong electromagnetic field. This unobserved effect, which is called vacuum diffraction, can explore the mysterious nature of the quantum vacuum. An experimental effort to search for vacuum diffraction is reported. In this experiment, a high-power laser is used to polarize the vacuum, and an x-ray free electron laser is used as the probe for the diffraction.

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High-energy heavy-ion collisions generate the strongest electromagnetic and color fields in the current Universe and provide a unique opportunity to study strong-field physics other than by intense lasers. I review the theoretical and experimental progress of strong-field physics in high-energy heavy-ion collisions made in the past decade.

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To reach the Schwinger electric field (ES ~1.3×10 18 V/m), current laser intensities are still 6 to 7 digits short. We propose a new principle called microbubble implosion to move substantially closer to the Schwinger electric field through the interaction between light and plasma. We fill the cavity of a micron- sized bubble with fast electrons with energies of several tens of MeV and generate a spherically- symmetric electrostatic field that accelerates the bubble surface protons to ultra-high speeds. As a result, the protons implode toward the center achieving an ultra-dense proton sphere with a compressed mass density of several hundred thousand times higher than that of a solid and an energy density with one million times higher than that at the center of the sun as well as the ultrahigh electric field and ultrahigh energetic protons. This phenomenon occurs in just several tens of attoseconds. In this paper, we review the underlying physics of the microbubble implosion.

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Neutron stars are high-density compact objects left after supernova explosions, rotating at fast spin frequencies and with strong magnetic fields. Among the neutron stars, magnetars are species having the strongest magnetic fields reaching 10 10- 11 Tesla exhibiting various magnetically driven activities such as giant flares and short bursts. Since this magnetic field strength exceeds the critical field of the QED, magnetars are thought to be laboratories in the universe to study fundamental physics such as photon splitting and vacuum polarization in the strong magnetic field.

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The dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) is a conversion of virtual photons into directly observable real photons by the parametric amplification of quantum vacuum fluctuations. After briefly reviewing previous studies on DCE, we introduce our theory on photon emissions from DCE in terms of the complex spectral analysis. We solved the Heisenberg equation of the whole system in which a parametric oscillator is coupled to a photonic crystal and calculated the photon emission spectrum. In situations where a pair of complex eigenvalues of the Liouvillian (complex eigenfrequencies) is in the first Riemann sheet, the photon number of every mode increases exponentially. Otherwise, parametric amplification is suppressed by the effect of dissipation, and the photon number of the parametric oscillator is kept constant and stationary photon emission occurs. We also found a qualitative change in the photon emission process at the parametric bifurcation point.

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The Monte Carlo calculation of nonlinear Compton scattering is discussed of an unpolarized electron in a high-intensity laser pulse of a linearly polarized plane wave. We developed the Monte Carlo calculation scheme employing the angular distribution formula of the photon emission, it resolved photon energy, propagation direction, and polarization. The polarization feature is shown how two polarization modes are different in the numerical result.

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