Nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production in collisions of bremsstrahlung γ quanta and a tightly focused laser pulse

A. Golub, S. Villalba-Chávez, and C. Müller

Phys. Rev. D 105, 116016 – Published 21 June 2022

https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.105.116016

Abstract: Experimental efforts toward the detection of the nonperturbative strong-field regime of the Breit-Wheeler pair creation process plan to combine incoherent sources of GeV γ quanta and the coherent fields of tightly focused optical laser pulses. This endeavor calls for a theoretical understanding of how the pair yields depend on the applied laser field profile. We provide estimates for the number of produced pairs in a setup where the high-energy radiation is generated via bremsstrahlung. Attention is paid to the role of the transversal and longitudinal focusing of the laser field, along with the incorporation of a Gaussian pulse envelope. We compare our corresponding results with predictions from plane-wave models and determine the parameters of focused laser pulses which maximize the pair yield at fixed pulse energy. Besides, the impact of various super-Gaussian profiles for the laser pulse envelope and its transverse shape is discussed.

Notebook by: Óscar Amaro