2024/11/13 by D. Seipt, Seipt, Daniel, Mathias Samuelsson +3 · 2 citations
Medicine · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Intraocular Surgery and Lenses #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2411.08559
openalex publication_date 2024/11/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Observing multiphoton electron-positron pair production (the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process) requires high-energy γ rays to interact with strong electromagnetic fields. In order for these observations to be as precise as possible, the γ rays would ideally be both mono-energetic and highly polarized. Here we perform Monte Carlo simulations of an experimental configuration that accomplishes this in two stages. First, a multi-GeV electron beam interacts with a moderately intense laser pulse to produce a bright, highly polarized beam of γ rays by inverse Compton scattering. Second, after removing the primary electrons, these γ rays collide with another, more intense, laser pulse in order to produce pairs. We show that it is possible to measure the γ-ray polarization dependence of the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process in near-term experiments, using a 100-TW class laser and currently available electron beams. Furthermore, it would also be possible to observe harmonic structure and the perturbative-to-nonperturbative transition if such a laser were colocated with a future linear collider.