Relativistic three-body recombination with the QED vacuum

TL;DR

This paper investigates relativistic three-body recombination involving electron-positron pairs and a free electron, revealing unique angular and polarization features and its dominance over two-photon annihilation in high-temperature plasmas.

Contribution

It introduces the relativistic three-body recombination process in QED and analyzes its angular and polarization characteristics, highlighting its significance in relativistic electron-positron plasmas.

Findings

Photon emission shows distinct angular distributions and polarization.

Process can dominate over two-photon annihilation in MeV electron-positron plasmas.

Analogy established with three-body recombination of electrons and ions.

Abstract

Electron-positron pair annihilation into a single photon is studied when a second free electron is present. Focussing on the relativistic regime, we show that the photon emitted in the three-lepton interaction may exhibit distinct angular distributions and polarization properties. Moreover, the process can dominate over two-photon annihilation in relativistic electron-positron plasmas of few-MeV temperature. An analogy with three-body recombination of electrons with ions is drawn.