Analytical model for electromagnetic cascades in rotating electric field

Nerush, E. N.; Bashmakov, Vladimir; Kostyukov, I. Yu.

doi:10.1063/1.3624481

Cited by 38 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…By now, Eqs. (2a), (2b) were solved numerically by the Monte-Carlo method [41,34,42,43,44,45] in combination with the particle-incell (PIC) scheme [46] for the cases when it was necessary to take into account plasma effects. These simulations seem to confirm the above described qualitative picture of cascade development.…”

Section: Laser Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creation of electron-positron plasma with superstrong laser field

Narozhny

Fedotov

2014

Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top.

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Abstract. We present a short review of recent progress in studying QED effects of interaction of ultrarelativistic laser pulses with vacuum and e − e + plasma. The development of laser technologies promises very rapid growth of laser intensities in close future already. Two exawatt class facilities (ELI and XCELS, Russia) in Europe are already in the planning stage. Realization of these projects will make available a laser of intensity ∼ 10 26 W/cm 2 or even higher. Therefore, discussion of nonlinear optical effects in vacuum are becoming urgent for experimentalists and are currently gaining much attention. We show that, in spite of the fact that the respective field strength is still essentially less than ES = m 2 c 3 /e = 1.32 · 10 16 V/cm, the nonlinear vacuum effects will be accessible for observation at ELI and XCELS facilities. The most promissory for observation is the effect of pair creation by laser pulse in vacuum. It is shown, that at intensities ∼ 5·10 25 W/cm 2 , creation even of a single pair is accompanied by development of an avalanchelike QED cascade. There exists an important distinctive feature of the laser-induced cascades, as compared with the air showers arising due to primary cosmic ray entering the atmosphere. In our case the laser field plays not only the role of a target (similar to a nucleus in the case of air showers). It is responsible also for acceleration of slow particles. It is shown that the effect of pair creation imposes a natural limit for attainable laser intensity. Apparently, the field strength E ∼ ES is not accessible for pair creating electromagnetic field at all.PACS. 42.50.Ct Quantum description of interaction of light and matter; related experiments -12.20.Ds Specific calculations -52.27.Ep Electron-positron plasmas

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Section: Laser Fieldmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creation of electron-positron plasma with superstrong laser field

Narozhny

Fedotov

2014

Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top.

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“…However there is the possibility that different strong field processes, such as QED cascades, will set in which might prevent reaching critical intensities [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Semiclassical pair production rate for rotating electric fields

Strobel

Xue

2015

Phys. Rev. D

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We semiclassically investigate Schwinger pair production for pulsed rotating electric fields depending on time. To do so we solve the Dirac equation for two-component fields in a WKB-like approximation. The result shows that for two-component fields the spin distribution of produced pairs is generally not 1 : 1. As a result the pair creation rates of spinor and scalar quantum electro dynamics (QED) are different even for one pair of turning points. For rotating electric fields the pair creation rate is dominated by particles with a specific spin depending on the sense of rotation for a certain range of pulse lengths and frequencies. We present an analytical solution for the momentum spectrum of the constant rotating field. We find interference effects not only in the momentum spectrum but also in the total particle number of rotating electric fields.PACS numbers: 12.20. Ds, 11.15.Kc, 11.15.Tk IntroductionSince the first investigations of electron-positron pair creation in strong electric fields, also known as the Schwinger effect, there has been a lot of theoretical investigations of it. However it has not yet been possible to measure it directly due to the exponentially damped pair creation rate ∼ exp(−π/ ) where = E/E c is the field strength E normalized by the critical electric field [1-3]As laser powers in future may get closer to reaching this critical field strength, investigations of the effect are of interest. However there is the possibility that different strong field processes, such as QED cascades, will set in which might prevent reaching critical intensities [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14].As pointed out in [15] it might be crucial for the detection of the Schwinger effect to evaluate if one can distinguish a QED cascade triggered by an electron which was produced in the Schwinger process from one which was triggered by vacuum impurities. To do so one first has to evaluate the properties of the pairs produced via the Schwinger effect. The simplest field configurations taken into account for cascade calculations are uniformly rotating electrical fields. These are approximative models for the electric fields in the anti-nodes of circularly polarized standing waves. The momentum spectrum of produced electron-positron pairs for rotating fields has been recently investigated numerically for pulsed fields with the help of the real-time Dirac-Heisenberg-Wigner (DHW) formalism [15] as well as analytically for constant rotating fields with help of the semiclassical WKB approximation for spinor QED [16]. Numerical methods usually need a lot of computation time. Semiclassical methods can help to give a better understanding of special features of the momentum spectrum, e.g. interference effects. For one-component fields depending solely on time there exist a lot of semiclassical investigations using e.g. the WKB-approximation [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] or the world-line instanton method [27][28][29]. In addition to that there are exact solutions for fields depending on lightcone variabl...

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“…In such a case G remains zero and F = −a 2 m ph 2 /2. The presence of a strong laser field with intensity corresponding to χ > 1, ξ ≫ 1 stimulates a mechanism called QED cascade [8][9][10][11] . During the cascade, an electron is accelerated by the laser field, absorbs many laser photons and emits a gamma photon through a quantum process called the nonlinear Compton scattering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Lagrangian formulation of strong-field quantum electrodynamics in a plasma

2014

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The Lagrangian formulation of the scalar and spinor quantum electrodynamics (QED) in the presence of strong laser fields in a plasma medium is considered. We include the plasma influence in the free Lagrangian analogously to the "Furry picture" and obtain coupled equations of motion for the plasma particles and for the laser propagation. We demonstrate that the strong-field wave (i.e. the laser) satisfies a massive dispersion relation and obtain self-consistently the effective mass of the laser photons. The Lagrangian formulation derived in this paper is the basis for the cross sections calculation of quantum processes taking place in the presence of a plasma.

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Analytical model for electromagnetic cascades in rotating electric field

Cited by 38 publications

References 47 publications

Creation of electron-positron plasma with superstrong laser field

Creation of electron-positron plasma with superstrong laser field

Semiclassical pair production rate for rotating electric fields

The Lagrangian formulation of strong-field quantum electrodynamics in a plasma

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