Nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production in collisions of bremsstrahlung <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mrow><mml:mi>γ</mml:mi></mml:mrow></mml:math> quanta and a tightly focused laser pulse

Abstract

Experimental efforts toward the detection of the nonperturbative strong-field regime of the Breit-Wheeler pair creation process plan to combine incoherent sources of GeV quanta and the coherent fields of tightly focused optical laser pulses. This endeavor calls for a theoretical understanding of how the pair yields depend on the applied laser field profile. We provide estimates for the number of produced pairs in a setup where the high-energy radiation is generated via bremsstrahlung. Attention is paid to the role of the transversal and longitudinal focusing of the laser field, along with the incorporation of a Gaussian pulse envelope. We compare our corresponding results with predictions from plane-wave models and determine the parameters of focused laser pulses which maximize the pair yield at fixed pulse energy. Besides, the impact of various super-Gaussian profiles for the laser pulse envelope and its transverse shape is discussed.