Non-linear pair production in scattering of photons on ultra-short laser pulses at high energy

Abstract

We consider scattering of a photon on a short intense laser pulse at high energy. We argue that for ultrashort laser pulses the interaction is coherent over the entire length of the pulse. At low pulse intensity I the total cross section for electron-positron pair production is proportional to I. However, at pulse intensities higher than the characteristic value Is , the total cross section saturates -it becomes proportional to the logarithm of intensity. This non-linear effect is due to multi-photon interactions. We derive the total cross section for pair production at high energies by resuming the multi-photon amplitudes to all orders in intensity. We calculate the saturation intensity Is and show that it is significantly lower than the Schwinger's critical value. We discuss possible experimental tests. RightsThis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We consider scattering of a photon on a short intense laser pulse at high energy. We argue that for ultrashort laser pulses the interaction is coherent over the entire length of the pulse. At low pulse intensity I the total cross section for electron-positron pair production is proportional to I. However, at pulse intensities higher than the characteristic value I s , the total cross section saturates -it becomes proportional to the logarithm of intensity. This non-linear effect is due to multi-photon interactions. We derive the total cross section for pair production at high energies by resuming the multi-photon amplitudes to all orders in intensity. We calculate the saturation intensity I s and show that it is significantly lower than the Schwinger's critical value. We discuss possible experimental tests.

Semiclassical picture for electron-positron photoproduction in strong laser fields

“…The essential difference between both approaches is the presence of the phase factor exp [i S Γ (φ k )] in Eq. (26), which gives rise to the interfer-ence substructure once the contribution of multiple stationary points is taken into account. If the spectrum is calculated for each stationary point separately and the result is added on the probability level, the interference fringes are lost (see inset in Fig.…”

“…1) is now within reach, e.g., at upcoming high-power laser facilities like the APOLLON-10P laser [9], the Extreme Light Infrastructure [10], the Vulcan 10 PW laser [11] at the Central Laser Facility [12], and the Exawatt Center for Extreme Light Studies [13]. Therefore, this process has recently been considered by several authors [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] (see also the reviews [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]).…”

Polarization-operator approach to pair creation in short laser pulses

“…Due to the experimental progress concerning laser development during the last years, the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process has been recently investigated by several authors [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] (see also the reviews [8,50]). To achieve the strong field strengths needed to observe the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process, future experiments will probably use short laser pulses.…”

Spin correlations in nonperturbative electron–positron pair creation by petawatt laser pulses colliding with a TeV proton beam

“…In particular, we show that the dominant contribution to the total rate stems from antiparallel spin orientations of the electron and positron, whereas the smaller contribution from parallel lepton spins can be associated with the Klein-Gordon rate prediction. For further recent studies on photo-and laser-induced e + e − pair creation we refer the reader to [27][28][29][30][31][32][33].…”