Adiabatic pair creation in heavy-ion and laser fields

Abstract

The planned generation of lasers and heavy ion colliders renews the hope to see electron-positron pair creation in strong classical fields (so called spontaneous pair creation). This adiabatic relativistic effect has however not been described in a unified manner. We discuss here the theory of adiabatic pair creation yielding the momentum distribution of scattered pairs in overcritical fields. Our conclusion about the possibility of adiabatic pair creation is different from earlier predictions for laser fields.