Creation Dynamics of Bound States in Supercritical Fields

Krekora, P.; Cooley, K.; Su, Q.; Grobe, R.

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.95.070403

Cited by 67 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For more recent information on the pair production in the heavy-ion collisions see [363,364,365] and for complete references the resource letter [366].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electron–positron pairs in physics and astrophysics: From heavy nuclei to black holes

Ruffini¹,

Vereshchagin²,

Xue³

2010

Physics Reports

491

305

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Due to the interaction of physics and astrophysics we are witnessing in these years a splendid synthesis of theoretical, experimental and observational results originating from three fundamental physical processes. They were originally proposed by Dirac, by Breit and Wheeler and by Sauter, Heisenberg, Euler and Schwinger. For almost seventy years they have all three been followed by a continued effort of experimental verification on Earth-based experiments. The Dirac process, e + e − → 2γ, has been by far the most successful. It has obtained extremely accurate experimental verification and has led as well to an enormous number of new physics in possibly one of the most fruitful experimental avenues by introduction of storage rings in Frascati and followed by the largest accelerators worldwide: DESY, SLAC etc. The Breit-Wheeler process, 2γ → e + e − , although conceptually simple, being the inverse process of the Dirac one, has been by far one of the most difficult to be verified experimentally. Only recently, through the technology based on free electron X-ray laser and its numerous applications in Earth-based experiments, some first indications of its possible verification have been reached. The vacuum polarization process in strong electromagnetic field, pioneered by Sauter, Heisenberg, Euler and Schwinger, introduced the concept of critical electric field E c = m 2 e c 3 /(e ). It has been searched without success for more than forty years by heavy-ion collisions in many of the leading particle accelerators worldwide.The novel situation today is that these same processes can be studied on a much more grandiose scale during the gravitational collapse leading to the formation of a black hole being observed in Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). This report is dedicated to the scientific race. The theoretical and experimental work developed in Earth-based laboratories is confronted with the theoretical interpretation of space-based observations of phenomena originating on cosmological scales. What has become clear in the last ten years is that all the three above mentioned processes, duly extended in the general relativistic framework, are necessary for the understanding of the physics of the gravitational collapse to a black hole. Vice versa, the natural arena where these processes can be observed in mutual interaction and on an unprecedented scale, is indeed the realm of relativistic astrophysics.We systematically analyze the conceptual developments which have followed the basic work of Dirac and Breit-Wheeler. We also recall how the seminal work of Born and Infeld inspired the work by Sauter, Heisenberg and Euler on effective Lagrangian leading to the estimate of the rate for the process of electron-positron production in 1 a constant electric field. In addition of reviewing the intuitive semi-classical treatment of quantum mechanical tunneling for describing the process of electron-positron production, we recall the calculations in Quantum Electro-Dynamics of the Schwinger rate and effective Lagrangian for cons...

show abstract

“…For more recent information on the pair production in the heavy-ion collisions see [363,364,365] and for complete references the resource letter [366].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electron–positron pairs in physics and astrophysics: From heavy nuclei to black holes

Ruffini¹,

Vereshchagin²,

Xue³

2010

Physics Reports

491

305

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The results suggest that the location of lowest energy eigenstate plays a crucial part during pair-creation. These studies are also slightly more complicated as one has to rely entirely on quantum field theoretical simulations because the analogous quantum scattering system does not permit Klein tunneling and the long-time creation rate vanishes due to Pauli-blocking [32].…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Traditionally, the diving of the lowest lying bound state into the negative energy continuum has been associated with the onset of pair-creation [1], on the other hand, spatially resolved simulations show that the particles are being created only at those local regions where the force field is maximum [32]. To examine this question further, we simulated the pair-creation process for a potential well with an increase of the width of the well while leaving the regions of largest force (the wings of the well) unchanged.…”

Section: Summary and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Electron-positron pair creation induced by quantum-mechanical tunneling

Jiang

et al. 2011

Phys. Rev. A

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We study the creation of electron-positron pairs from the vacuum induced by two spatially displaced static electric fields. The strength and spatial width of each localized field is less than required for pair-creation. If, however, the separation between the fields is less than the quantum mechanical tunneling length associated with the corresponding quantum scattering system, the system produces a steady flux of electron-positron pairs. We compute the time-dependence of the pair-creation probability by solving the Dirac equation numerically for various external field sequences. For the special case of two very narrow fields we provide an analytical expression for the pair-creation rate in the long-time limit.2

show abstract

“…Further nonlinear vacuum effects in strong laser fields comprise photonphoton scattering [41,42,43], photon splitting [44,45] and changes in the refractive index [46,47]. The creation of bound states in a supercritical ionic field was treated in [48].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bound-freee+e−pair creation with a linearly polarized laser field and a nuclear field

Deneke

Müller

2008

Phys. Rev. A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The process of bound-free pair production of electrons and positrons in combined laser and Coulomb fields is investigated. It is assumed that an ion collides at relativistic speed with an intense x-ray laser beam of linear polarization. The process proceeds nonlinearly due to simultaneous absorption of a few laser photons. The capture of the electron into the ground state and the L-shell is considered. The scaling of the total rate, the angular distributions of the emitted positrons and a comparison to the competing free-free channel are surveyed. Numerical results of pair production rates for parameters for the planned x-ray free electron lasers at DESY and SLAC are presented. We find that pair production with these laser facilities can become observable in the near future.

show abstract

Creation Dynamics of Bound States in Supercritical Fields

Cited by 67 publications

References 11 publications

Electron–positron pairs in physics and astrophysics: From heavy nuclei to black holes

Electron–positron pairs in physics and astrophysics: From heavy nuclei to black holes

Electron-positron pair creation induced by quantum-mechanical tunneling

Bound-freee+e−pair creation with a linearly polarized laser field and a nuclear field

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About