First steps in QED cascades - the onset stage


First steps in QED cascades - the onset stage

Hernandez Acosta, U.

While the high frequency of modern x-ray free-electron lasers has the benefit of requiring less energy of a seed electron for triggering the development of a QED cascade, the non-linearity parameter obeys a_0 < 1, in contrast to high-intensity optical lasers. Accordingly, we analyse the phenomenon of multi-photon effects in trident pair production in pulsed x-ray laser fields at such values of a_0. The impact of the energy spectrum and its temporal structure and the coherence of the laser field on the emergent particle distribution at the onset of further cascading is discussed. Besides the evolution of mean multiplicities in the course of an energy-powered cascade, we seek characteristic fluctuation patterns.

Keywords: Strong-field QED; Pair production; Electromagnetic cascades; Trident process

  • Invited lecture (Conferences)
    QED Laser Plasmas (qlasp22), 26.-30.09.2022, Dresden, Germany

Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-36055
Publ.-Id: 36055