Photon splitting in atomic fields

Abstract

Photon splitting due to vacuum polarization in the electric field of an atom is considered. We survey different theoretical approaches to the description of this nonlinear QED process and several attempts of its experimental observation. We present the results of the lowest-order perturbation theory as well as those obtained within the quasiclassical approximation being exact in the external field strength. The experiment where photon splitting was really observed for the first time is discussed in details. The results of this experiment are compared with recent theoretical estimations.

45 pages, 24 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Experimental investigation of high-energy photon splitting in atomic fields

Cited by in corpus (14)

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• Laser photon merging in proton-laser collisions
• Delbrück scattering in combined Coulomb and laser fields
• Laser-dressed vacuum polarization in a Coulomb field
• Logarithmically enhanced Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian contribution to the electron gyromagnetic factor
• Ultrarelativistic quasiclassical wave functions in strong laser and atomic fields
• Small-angle scattering and quasiclassical approximation beyond leading order
• Elastic light-by-light scattering in a nonminimal Lorentz violation scenario
• Physical realization of Photonic Klein Tunneling