Rise and fall of laser-intensity effects in spectrally resolved Compton process

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the differential cross section of spectrally resolved Compton scattering varies with laser intensity, revealing a peak at a specific intensity and contrasting it with the total probability behavior, while also exploring pair production effects.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the laser intensity dependence of spectrally resolved Compton scattering and combines it with pair production models to predict electron-positron yields.

Findings

Differential cross section peaks at a specific laser intensity parameter.

The fall-off of the differential cross section at high intensity follows a specific exponential decay.

Rapid increase in electron-positron pairs at moderate laser intensities.

Abstract

The spectrally resolved differential cross section of Compton scattering, $d \sigma / d \omega' \vert_{\omega' = const}$, rises from small towards larger laser intensity parameter $\xi$, reaches a maximum, and falls towards the asymptotic strong-field region. Expressed by invariant quantities: $d \sigma /du \vert_{u = const}$ rises from small towards larger values of $\xi$, reaches a maximum at $\xi_{max} = \frac49 {\cal K} u m^2 / k \cdot p$, ${\cal K} = {\cal O} (1)$, and falls at $\xi > \xi_{max}$ like $\propto \xi^{-3/2} \exp \left (- \frac{2 u m^2}{3 \xi \, k \cdot p} \right )$ at $u \ge 1$. [The quantity $u$ is the Ritus variable related to the light-front momentum-fraction $s = (1 + u)/u = k \cdot k' / k \cdot p$ of the emitted photon (four-momentum $k'$, frequency $\omega'$), and $k \cdot p/m^2$ quantifies the invariant energy in the entrance channel of electron (four-momentum $p$, mass $m$) and laser (four-wave vector $k$).] Such a behavior of a differential observable is to be contrasted with the laser intensity dependence of the total probability, $\lim_{\chi = \xi k \cdot p/m^2, \xi \to \infty} \mathbb{P} \propto \alpha \chi^{2/3} m^2 / k \cdot p$, which is governed by the soft spectral part. We combine the hard-photon yield from Compton with the seeded Breit-Wheeler pair production in a folding model and obtain a rapidly increasing $e^+ e^-$ pair number at $\xi \lesssim 4$. Laser bandwidth effects are quantified in the weak-field limit of the related trident pair production.