The worldline approach to helicity flip in plane waves
arXiv:1601.05021 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.93.085006
Abstract
We apply worldline methods to the study of vacuum polarisation effects in plane wave backgrounds, in both scalar and spinor QED. We calculate helicity-flip probabilities to one loop order and treated exactly in the background field, and provide a toolkit of methods for use in investigations of higher-order processes. We also discuss the connections between the worldline, S-matrix, and lightfront approaches to vacuum polarisation effects.
11 pages, 1 figure