Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Missouri University of Science and Technology

Photons

2009

Articles 1 - 5 of 5

Full-Text Articles in Physics

Correlated Two-Photon Emission By Transitions Of Dirac-Volkov States In Intense Laser Fields: Qed Predictions, Erik Lotstedt, Ulrich D. Jentschura Nov 2009

Correlated Two-Photon Emission By Transitions Of Dirac-Volkov States In Intense Laser Fields: Qed Predictions, Erik Lotstedt, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

In an intense laser field, an electron may decay by emitting a pair of photons. The two photons emitted during the process, which can be interpreted as a laser-dressed double Compton scattering, remain entangled in a quantifiable way: namely, the so-called concurrence of the photon polarizations gives a gauge-invariant measure of the correlation of the hard gamma rays. We calculate the differential rate and concurrence for a backscattering setup of the electron and photon beam, employing Volkov states and propagators for the electron lines, thus accounting nonperturbatively for the electron-laser interaction. The nonperturbative results are shown to differ significantly compared …


Relativistic (Zα)2 Corrections And Leading Quantum Electrodynamic Corrections To The Two-Photon Decay Rate Of Ionic States, Benedikt J. Wundt, Ulrich D. Jentschura Aug 2009

Relativistic (Zα)2 Corrections And Leading Quantum Electrodynamic Corrections To The Two-Photon Decay Rate Of Ionic States, Benedikt J. Wundt, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We calculate the relativistic corrections of relative order (Zα) 2 to the two-photon decay rate of higher excited S and D states in ionic atomic systems, and we also evaluate the leading radiative corrections of relative order α (Zα) 2 ln [(Zα) -2]. We thus complete the theory of the two-photon decay rates up to relative order α3 ln (α). An approach inspired by nonrelativistic quantum electrodynamics is used. We find that the corrections of relative order (Zα) 2 to the two-photon decay are given by the Zitterbewegung, by the spin-orbit coupling and by relativistic corrections to the electron mass, …


Quantitative Rescattering Theory For Laser-Induced High-Energy Plateau Photoelectron Spectra, Zhangjin Chen, Anh-Thu Le, Toru Morishita, C. D. Lin Mar 2009

Quantitative Rescattering Theory For Laser-Induced High-Energy Plateau Photoelectron Spectra, Zhangjin Chen, Anh-Thu Le, Toru Morishita, C. D. Lin

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

A comprehensive quantitative rescattering (QRS) theory for describing the production of high-energy photoelectrons generated by intense laser pulses is presented. According to the QRS, the momentum distributions of these electrons can be expressed as the product of a returning electron wave packet with the elastic differential cross sections (DCS) between free electrons with the target ion. We show that the returning electron wave packets are determined mostly by the lasers only and can be obtained from the strong field approximation. The validity of the QRS model is carefully examined by checking against accurate results from the solution of the time-dependent …


Accurate Retrieval Of Target Structures And Laser Parameters Of Few-Cycle Pulses From Photoelectron Momentum Spectra, Samuel Micheau, Zhangjin Chen, Anh-Thu Le, J. Rauschenberger, M. F. Kling, C. D. Lin Feb 2009

Accurate Retrieval Of Target Structures And Laser Parameters Of Few-Cycle Pulses From Photoelectron Momentum Spectra, Samuel Micheau, Zhangjin Chen, Anh-Thu Le, J. Rauschenberger, M. F. Kling, C. D. Lin

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We illustrate a new method of analyzing three-dimensional momentum images of high-energy photoelectrons generated by intense phase-stabilized few-cycle laser pulses. Using photoelectron momentum spectra that were obtained by velocity-map imaging of above-threshold ionization of xenon and argon targets, we show that the absolute carrier-envelope phase, the laser peak intensity, and pulse duration can be accurately determined simultaneously (with an error of a few percent). We also show that the target structure, in the form of electron-target ion elastic differential cross sections, can be retrieved over a range of energies. The latter offers the promise of using laser-generated electron spectra for …


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 Jan 2009

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 …