No Arabic abstract
We investigate the 2nd order process of two photons being emitted by a high-energy electron dressed in the strong background electric field found between the planes in a crystal. The strong crystalline field combined with ultra relativistic electrons is one of very few cases where the Schwinger field can be experimentally achieved in the electrons rest frame. The radiation being emitted, the so-called channeling radiation, is a well studied phenomenon. However only the first order diagram corresponding to emission of a single photon has been studied so far. We elaborate on how the 2 photon emission process should be understood in terms of a two-step versus a one-step process, i.e., if one can consider one photon being emitted after the other, or if there is also a contribution where the two photons are emitted simultaneously. From the calculated full probability we see that the two-step contribution is simply the product of probabilities for single photon emission while the additional one-step terms are, mainly, interferences due to several possible intermediate virtual states. These terms can contribute significantly when the crystal is thin. Therefore, in addition, we see how one can, for a thick crystal, calculate multiple photon emissions quickly by neglecting the one-step terms, which represents a solution of the problem of quantum radiation reaction in a crystal beyond the usually applied constant field approximation. We explicitly calculate an example of 180 GeV electrons in a thin Silicon crystal and argue why it is, for experimental reasons, more feasible to see the one-step contribution in a crystal experiment than in a laser experiment.
Approximate solutions of the Dirac equation are found for ultrarelativistic particles moving in a periodic potential, which depends only on one coordinate, transverse to the largest component of the momentum of the incoming particle. As an example we employ these solutions to calculate the radiation emission of positrons and electrons trapped in the planar potential found between the (110) planes in Silicon. This allows us to compare with the semi-classical method of Baier, Katkov and Strakhovenko, which includes the effect of spin and photon recoil, but neglects the quantization of the transverse motion. For high-energy electrons, the high-energy part of the angularly integrated photon energy spectrum calculated with the found wave functions differs from the corresponding one calculated with the semi-classical method. However, for lower particle energies it is found that the angularly integrated emission energy spectra obtained via the semi-classical method is in fairly good agreement with the full quantum calculation except that the positions of the harmonic peaks in photon energy and the photon emission angles are shifted.
We study all-optical signatures of the effective nonlinear couplings among electromagnetic fields in the quantum vacuum, using the collision of two focused high-intensity laser pulses as an example. The experimental signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearities are encoded in signal photons, whose kinematic and polarization properties differ from the photons constituting the macroscopic laser fields. We implement an efficient numerical algorithm allowing for the theoretical investigation of such signatures in realistic field configurations accessible in experiment. This algorithm is based on a vacuum emission scheme and can readily be adapted to the collision of more laser beams or further involved field configurations. We solve the case of two colliding pulses in full 3+1 dimensional spacetime, and identify experimental geometries and parameter regimes with improved signal-to-noise ratios.
We study the scattering problem of photon and polariton in a one-dimensional coupled-cavity system. Analytical approximate analysis and numerical simulation show that a photon can stimulate the photon emission from a polariton through polariton-photon collisions. This observation opens the possibility of photon-stimulated transition from insulating to radiative phase in a coupled-cavity QED system. Inversely, we also find that a polariton can be generated by a two-photon Raman scattering process. This paves the way towards single photon storage by the aid of atom-cavity interaction.
In a previous paper we showed how higher-order strong-field-QED processes in long laser pulses can be approximated by multiplying sequences of strong-field Mueller matrices. We obtained expressions that are valid for arbitrary field shape and polarization. In this paper we derive practical approximations of these Mueller matrices in the locally-constant- and the locally-monochromatic-field regimes. We allow for arbitrary laser polarization as well as arbitrarily polarized initial and final particles. The spin and polarization can also change due to loop contributions (the mass operator for electrons and the polarization operator for photons). We derive Mueller matrices for these as well.
The interaction of high energy particles with atomic axes and planes allows to observe in crystal various effects predicted by the quantum electrodynamics of phenomena in strong electromagnetic field. In particular, the effect of electron-positron pair production by gamma-quanta in a semi-uniform field was observed for the first time in eightieth in CERN in the field of germanium crystal axes. The high energy of LHC drastically widens the possibilities of strong field QCD effect investigation in crystals allowing to observe vacuum dichroism and birefringence, electron radiative self-polarization and polarized electron-positron pair production by gamma-quanta, positron (electron) anomalous magnetic moment modification and electron spin rotation in crystal field harmonics. The effect of vacuum birefringence induced by strong electric field is considered in detail.