Bound-bound pair production in relativistic collisions

TL;DR

This paper investigates bound-bound electron-positron pair production during relativistic nucleus-anti-nucleus collisions, revealing unique energy and charge dependencies and showing it can surpass non-radiative electron capture in cross section at high energies.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of bound-bound pair production in relativistic collisions and analyzes its distinct dependence on impact energy and particle charge.

Findings

Bound-bound pair production has a different energy dependence than free or bound-free processes.

At high impact energies, the cross section exceeds that of non-radiative electron capture.

The process's cross section increases with collision energy and particle charge.

Abstract

Electron-positron pair production is considered in the relativistic collision of a nucleus and an anti-nucleus, in which both leptons are created in bound states of the corresponding nucleus-lepton system. Compared to free and bound-free pair production this process is shown to display a qualitatively different dependency both on the impact energy and charged of the colliding particles. Interestingly, at high impact energies the cross section for this process is found to be larger than that for the analogous atomic process of non-radiative electron capture although the latter does not involve the creation of new particles.