Quvac (from quantum vacuum, pronounced as qu-ack 🐸) allows to calculate quantum vacuum signals produced during light-by-light scattering.

Documentation is available here.

It is recommended to create a separate Python environment for this package, e.g.

micromamba create -n quvac python=3.12

After cloning the git repository and entering it, choose relevant optional dependencies

• [test] allows to run tests
• [plot] installs matplotlib
• [optimization] installs Bayesian optimization package

To install all dependencies, run

pip install .[all]

pip install .[test,plot]

After successfull installation with [all] or [test] option, run pytest to make sure the installation was successfull (it takes some time).

pytest

If you noticed a bug or have a feature request, open a new issue.

If you use this code and/or consider it useful, please cite our article.

@article{valialshchikov2025back,
  title={Back-reflection in dipole fields and beyond},
  author={Valialshchikov, Maksim and Karbstein, Felix and Seipt, Daniel and Zepf, Matt},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.11764},
  year={2025}
}

[1] - F. Karbstein, and R. Shaisultanov. "Stimulated photon emission from the vacuum." PRD 91.11 (2015): 113002 [article].

[2] - A. Blinne, et al. "All-optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearities in generic laser fields." PRD 99.1 (2019): 016006 [article].