In the year around 2030 and later, the update for HIAF to construct a merge ring will be ready for study QED in super strong field beyond Schwinger limit. CiADS will possibly provide sufficient number of radioactive ions for HIAF. ADANES will be constructed.

The layout of future HIAF-CiADS, ADANES-LIBS, and experimental setups for APEX

The upgrade of HIAF will provide unprecedented opportunities for QED tests in super-critical electromagnetic fields beyond the Schwinger limit [3], where QED vacuum decay will be manifested [4] by the identification of spontaneous e+e- pair creation in heavy ion-ion collisions at CM energies below Coulomb barrier in the merge rings. In the merge configuration, two stored beams of bare or few-electron heavy ions will collide at the crossing of SRing and MRing. The proposed detector system is shown in Figure 2. A detector array in the forward angle is designed for detection of e+e- and x-rays photons. It can also identify the e+ from e-. A pair of precision magnetic spectrometer will be installed for the detection and identification of e+e- in zero degree. The x-ray detectors can be used to study the MO processes. 

A schematic view of the experimental setup for study of vacuum decay in super-critical field