The effect of interference on the trident process in a constant crossed field

Abstract

We perform a complete calculation of electron-seeded pair-creation (the trident process) in a constant crossed electromagnetic background. Unlike earlier treatments, we include the interference between exchange diagrams. We find this exchange interference can be written as a contribution solely to the one-step process, and for small quantum nonlinearity parameter is of the same order as other one-step terms. We find the exchange interference further suppresses the one-step process in this parameter regime. Our findings further support the crucial assumption made in laser-plasma simulation codes that at high intensities, the trident process can be well-approximated by repeated iteration of the single-vertex subprocesses. The applicability of this assumption to higher-vertex processes has fundamental importance to the development of simulation capabilities.

21 pages, 11 figures