2005/11/29 by D. Blaschke, D. B. Blaschke, А. В. Прозоркевич +6 · 119 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Annihilation #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Atomic physics #Electron #Laser #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Laser-induced spectroscopy and plasma #Optics #Pair production #Photon #Physics #Plasma #Quantum mechanics #Quasiparticle #hep-ph #nucl-ex #nucl-th #physics.plasm-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.140402
published in Physical Review Letters 96(14), 140402 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2005/11/29 · openalex publication_date 2006/04/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Electron-positron pair creation in a standing wave is explored using a parameter-free quantum kinetic equation. Field strengths and frequencies corresponding to modern optical lasers induce a material polarization of the QED vacuum, which may be characterized as a plasma of e+e- quasiparticle pairs with a density of approximately 10(20) cm-3. The plasma vanishes almost completely when the laser field is zero, leaving a very small residual pair density n(r) which is the true manifestation of vacuum decay. The average pair density per period is proportional to the laser intensity but independent of the frequency nu. The density of residual pairs also grows with laser intensity but n(r) proportional to nu(2). With optical lasers at the forefront of the current generation, these dynamical QED vacuum effects can plausibly generate 5-10 observable two-photon annihilation events per laser pulse.