Closed system of equations for description of the e⁺e^– γ plasma generated from vacuum by strong electric field

Abstract

We present a self-consistent kinetic description of an electron-positron-photon (e − e + γ) plasma generated from vacuum in a focal spot of counterpropagating laser pulses. We rely on a model of purely time-dependent external electric field, but properly take into account quantum radiation from plasma, as well as the semiclassical internal (plasma) field. To achieve this goal we derive a system of coupled kinetic equations for the electron, positron, and photon plasma species supplemented with Maxwell equation for the internal electric field. Quantum radiation is included systematically by taking into account the pair creation/annihilation and radiation channels of the BBGKY chain in quasiparticle representation, which we truncate at second order of perturbation theory. An important application of our results would be consistent consideration of photon emission and cascade production beyond the locally constant field approximation, including the depletion of the driving laser field and a possible scenario of cascade saturation due to thermalization.

Radiation Problems Accompanying Carrier Production by an Electric Field in the Graphene

“…In the present work, we have considered some physical processes that are possible in the graphene under action of a strong time dependent electric field. To this end, nonperturbative methods (see [13][14][15] and relevant References given in the text of the article) of strong field QED with unstable vacuum (in particular, the Dirac model of the graphene) were used in combination with kinetic description of radiation from the electron-positron plasma created from the vacuum under an action of a strong time dependent electric field that was developed in References [57,58,66,67,80]. We would like to emphasize the significant development of KE formalism and study of the structure of these equations presented in the work.…”

“…The set of KE (58) and (59) with CI (60)- (63) and Maxwell Equations (35) describe a self-consistent dynamics of carriers in the graphene and a behavior of the internal electromagnetic fields. The same set of equations describes an electromagnetic radiation from graphene, both classical, being generated by plasma currents, and quantum, due to one-photon processes.…”

“…In what follows, we restrict ourselves by the study of quantum radiation processes within the framework of the KE approach [57,58]. We consider two different radiation mechanisms.…”

“…In addition to the above mentioned quasiclassical radiation, a quantum component of the radiation also exists due to elementary acts of interaction of the carriers with photons. In graphene, these mechanisms can be taken into account by analogy with the standard D = 3 + 1 QED [57,58,66]. Outside of the KE approach, this radiation mechanism was studied in Ref.…”

Conceptual design report for the LUXE experiment

“…The backreaction of the produced pairs and their Coulomb field on various pair creating background configurations has been studied in some depth and is known to induce plasma oscillations [171][172][173][174]. (For laser backgrounds, see the recent analysis [175] and references therein.) In view of the small pair densities to be expected for LUXE, any backreaction effects stemming from e + e − γ plasma effects should be negligible.…”