Trident pair production in a constant crossed field

TL;DR

This paper distinguishes between one-step and two-step mechanisms in trident pair production within a constant crossed field, showing how their relative importance varies with the quantum non-linearity parameter.

Contribution

It isolates and compares the one-step and two-step mechanisms, providing insights into their dominance depending on the quantum non-linearity parameter and field dimensions.

Findings

Two-step process aligns with polarised sub-process integration.

One-step process is suppressed at low to moderate parameters.

At high parameters, both channels are comparable if field size is limited.

Abstract

We isolate the two-step mechanism involving a real intermediate photon from the one-step mechanism involving a virtual photon for the trident process in a constant crossed field. The two-step process is shown to agree with an integration over polarised sub-processes. At low to moderate quantum non-linearity parameter, the one-step process is found to be suppressed. When the parameter is large, the two decay channels are comparable if the field dimensions are not much greater than the formation length.