Subthreshold pair production in short laser pulses

2012/06/01 by T. Nousch, Nousch, T., D. Seipt +6
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #hep-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1206.0159

13 pages, 5 figures

arxiv created 2012/06/01 · openalex publication_date 2012/06/01 · arxiv updated 2012/06/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

The e⁺e^- pair production by a probe photon traversing a linearly polarized laser pulse is treated as generalized nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process. For short laser pulses with very few oscillations of the electromagnetic field we find below the perturbative weak-field threshold √(s) = 2m a similar enhancement of the pair production rate as for circular polarization. The strong subthreshold enhancement is traced back to the finite bandwidth of the laser pulse. A folding model is developed which accounts for the interplay of the frequency spectrum and the intensity distribution in the course of the pulse.

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