Recoil effects in multiphoton electron-positron pair creation

Abstract

Triply differential probability rates for electron-positron pair creation in laser-nucleus collisions, calculated within the $S$-matrix approach, are investigated as functions of the nuclear recoil. Pronounced enhancements of differential probability rates of multiphoton pair production are found for a nonzero momentum transfer from the colliding nucleus. The corresponding rates show a very dramatic dependence on the polarization of the laser field impinging on the nucleus; only for a linearly polarized light are the multiphoton rates for electron-positron pair production considerably large. We focus therefore on this case. Our numerical results for different geometries of the reaction particles demonstrate that, for the linearly polarized laser field of an infinite extent (which is a good approximation for femtosecond laser pulses), the pair creation is far more efficient if the nucleus is detected in the direction of the laser-field propagation. The corresponding angular distributions of the created particles show that the high-energy pairs are predominantly produced in the plane spanned by the polarization vector and the laser-field propagation direction, while the low-energy pairs are rather spread around the latter of the two directions. The enhancement of differential probability rates at each energy sector, defined by the four-momentum conservation relation, is observed with varying the energy of the produced particles. The total probability rates of pair production are also evaluated and compared with the corresponding results for the case when one disregards the recoil effect. A tremendous enhancement of the total probability rates of the electron-positron pair creation is observed if one takes into account the nuclear recoil.