Pair production in laser fields oscillating in space and time

TL;DR

This paper investigates electron-positron pair production in laser fields with spatial and temporal oscillations, revealing significant effects of magnetic components and spatial dependence on production probability and resonance behavior.

Contribution

It provides a detailed calculation including spatial dependence and magnetic fields, which are often neglected, showing their impact on pair production dynamics.

Findings

Magnetic components significantly reduce production probability at high frequencies.

Spatial dependence alters the kinematic and resonance patterns.

Resonance positions are shifted, multiplied, and split due to magnetic effects.

Abstract

The production of electron-positron pairs from vacuum by counterpropagating laser beams of linear polarization is calculated. In contrast to the usual approximate approach, the spatial dependence and magnetic component of the laser field are taken into account. We show that the latter strongly affects the creation process at high laser frequency: the production probability is reduced, the kinematics is fundamentally modified, the resonant Rabi-oscillation pattern is distorted and the resonance positions are shifted, multiplied and split.