Electron-positron pair creation in low-energy collisions of heavy bare nuclei

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new computational method for calculating electron-positron pair creation probabilities in low-energy heavy-ion collisions, utilizing the time-dependent Dirac equation and B-spline basis functions.

Contribution

A novel approach based on the time-dependent Dirac equation and B-spline basis functions for calculating pair creation in heavy-ion collisions.

Findings

Calculated pair creation probabilities near Coulomb barrier energies.

Analyzed the impact of collision parameters on pair creation.

Compared results with previous studies and discussed spontaneous pair creation observation.

Abstract

A new method for calculations of electron-positron pair-creation probabilities in low-energy heavy-ion collisions is developed. The approach is based on the propagation of all one-electron states via the numerical solving of the time-dependent Dirac equation in the monopole approximation. The electron wave functions are represented as finite sums of basis functions constructed from B-splines using the dual-kinetic-balance technique. The calculations of the created particle numbers and the positron energy spectra are performed for the collisions of bare nuclei at the energies near the Coulomb barrier with the Rutherford trajectory and for different values of the nuclear charge and the impact parameter. To examine the role of the spontaneous pair creation the collisions with a modified velocity and with a time delay are also considered. The obtained results are compared with the previous calculations and the possibility of observation of the spontaneous pair creation is discussed.