Catalysis of Schwinger Vacuum Pair Production

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel method to catalyze vacuum electron-positron pair production using a superimposed X-ray probe and optical laser, potentially enabling the first observation of this non-perturbative QED effect.

Contribution

It introduces a new catalysis mechanism combining X-ray and optical laser fields to enhance pair production in strong electric fields.

Findings

Calculated absorption coefficient for vacuum polarization effects

Identified conditions for observing pair production with planned light sources

Proposed experimental setup for detecting non-perturbative QED phenomena

Abstract

We propose a new catalysis mechanism for non-perturbative vacuum electron-positron pair production, by superimposing a plane-wave X-ray probe beam with a strongly focused optical laser pulse, such as is planned at the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) facility. We compute the absorption coefficient arising from vacuum polarization effects for photons below threshold in a strong electric field. This set-up should facilitate the (first) observation of this non-perturbative QED effect with planned light sources such as ELI yielding an envisioned intensity of order 10^{26}W/cm^2.