Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coulomb-Field-Induced Conversion Of A High-Energy Photon Into A Pair Assisted By A Counterpropagating Laser Beam, Erik Lotstedt, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Christoph H. Keitel
Coulomb-Field-Induced Conversion Of A High-Energy Photon Into A Pair Assisted By A Counterpropagating Laser Beam, Erik Lotstedt, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Christoph H. Keitel
Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works
The laser-induced modification of a fundamental process of quantum electrodynamics, the conversion of a high-energy gamma photon in the Coulomb field of a nucleus into an electron-positron pair, is studied theoretically. Although the employed formalism allows for the general case where the gamma photon and laser photons cross at an arbitrary angle, we here focus on a theoretically interesting and numerically challenging setup, where the laser beam and gamma photon counterpropagate and impinge on a nucleus at rest. For a peak laser field smaller than the critical Schwinger field and gamma photon energy larger than the field-free threshold, the total …