Photo-production of scalar particles in the field of a circularly polarized laser beam

TL;DR

This paper investigates the production of scalar particle pairs by intense circularly polarized laser beams using scalar QED, providing explicit probability expressions and analyzing the effects of spin absence on pair creation rates.

Contribution

It offers new explicit formulas for scalar pair production probabilities in laser fields and compares spin effects, advancing understanding of minicharged particle detection.

Findings

Spin absence suppresses pair production rate.

Explicit probability expressions derived for scalar particles.

Potential applications in searching for minicharged particles.

Abstract

The photo-production of a pair of scalar particles in the presence of an intense, circularly polarized laser beam is investigated. Using the optical theorem within the framework of scalar quantum electrodynamics, explicit expressions are given for the pair production probability in terms of the imaginary part of the vacuum polarization tensor. Its leading asymptotic behavior is determined for various limits of interest. The influence of the absence of internal spin degrees of freedom is analyzed via a comparison with the corresponding probabilities for production of spin-1/2 particles; the lack of spin is shown to suppress the pair creation rate, as compared to the predictions from Dirac theory. Potential applications of our results for the search of minicharged particles are indicated.