Quantum entanglement of final particle states in the resonant trident pair production in a strong electromagnetic wave

TL;DR

This paper theoretically investigates the resonant trident pair production process in strong electromagnetic waves, revealing conditions under which quantum entanglement of final particles occurs and showing that the process can dominate over Compton scattering in certain regimes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the kinematics and entanglement in resonant trident pair production, highlighting new regimes where this process surpasses Compton scattering in probability.

Findings

Quantum entanglement of final particles is possible in two distinct cases.

Resonant trident pair production can significantly exceed Compton effect probability.

The process's probability depends strongly on electromagnetic wave parameters.

Abstract

The resonant trident pair production process in the collision of ultrarelativistic electrons with a strong electromagnetic wave is theoretically studied. Under resonant conditions, the intermediate virtual gamma-quantum becomes real. As a result, the original resonant trident pair production process effectively splits into two first-order processes by the fine structure constant: the electromagnetic field-stimulated Compton-effect and the electromagnetic field-stimulated Breit-Wheeler process. The kinematics of the resonant trident pair production process are studied in detail. It is shown that there are two different cases for the energies and outgoing angles of final particles (an electron and an electron-positron pair) in which their quantum entanglement is realized. In the first case, the energy and outgoing angles of final ultrarelativistic particles are uniquely determined by the parameters of the electromagnetic field-stimulated Compton-effect (the outgoing angle of the final electron and the quantum parameter of the Compton effect). In the second case, the energy and outgoing angles of final particles are uniquely determined by the electromagnetic field-stimulated Breit-Wheeler process (the electron-positron pair outgoing angle and the Breit-Wheeler quantum parameter). It is shown that in a sufficiently wide range of frequencies and intensities of a strong electromagnetic wave, and in the case of ultrarelativistic initial electrons, the differential probability of the resonant trident pair production process with simultaneous registration of the outgoing angles of final particles can significantly (by several orders of magnitude) exceed the total probability of the electromagnetic field-stimulated Compton-effect.