Polarization operator approach to pair creation in short laser pulses

Abstract

Short-pulse effects are investigated for the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process, i.e. the production of an electron-positron pair induced by a gamma photon inside an intense plane-wave laser pulse. To obtain the total pair-creation probability we verify (to leading-order) the cutting rule for the polarization operator in the realm of strong-field QED by an explicit calculation. Using a double-integral representation for the leading-order contribution to the polarization operator, compact expressions for the total pair-creation probability inside an arbitrary plane-wave background field are derived. Correspondingly, the photon wave function including leading-order radiative corrections in the laser field is obtained via the Schwinger-Dyson equation in the quasistatic approximation. Moreover, the influence of the carrier-envelope phase and of the laser pulse shape on the total pair-creation probability in a linearly polarized laser pulse is investigated, and the validity of the (local) constant-crossed field approximation analyzed. It is shown that with presently available technology pair-creation probabilities of the order of ten percent could be reached for a single gamma photon.

19 pages, 14 figures

References in corpus (11)

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• All-optical Compton gamma-ray source
• Dynamically assisted Schwinger mechanism
• Finite size effects in stimulated laser pair production
• Barrier control in tunneling e^+ e^- photoproduction
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Cited by in corpus (11)

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• Analytical tools for investigating strong-field QED processes in tightly focused laser fields
• High-Energy Recollision Processes of Laser-Generated Electron-Positron Pairs
• Doubly assisted Sauter-Schwinger effect
• Magnetic Field Effect on Charged Scalar Pair Creation at Finite Temperature
• Nonlinear neutrino-photon interactions inside strong laser pulses
• Minicharged particles search by strong laser pulse-induced vacuum polarization effects
• Soft photon approximation in a laser field