Breit-Wheeler Process in Intense Short Laser Pulses

Energy-angular distributions of electron-positron pair creation in collisions of a laser beam and a nonlaser photon are calculated using the $S$-matrix formalism. The laser field is modeled as a finite pulse, similar to the formulation introduced in our recent paper in the context of Compton scattering [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 85}, 062102 (2012)]. The nonperturbative regime of pair creation is considered here. The energy spectra of created particles are compared with the corresponding spectra obtained using the modulated plane wave approximation for the driving laser field. A very good agreement in these two cases is observed, provided that the laser pulse is sufficiently long. For short pulse durations, this agreement breaks down. The sensitivity of pair production to the polarization of a driving pulse is also investigated. We show that in the nonperturbative regime, the pair creation yields depend on the polarization of the pulse, reaching their maximal values for the linear polarization. Therefore, we focus on this case. Specifically, we analyze the dependence of pair creation on the relative configuration of linear polarizations of the laser pulse and the nonlaser photon. Lastly, we investigate the carrier-envelope phase effect on angular distributions of created particles, suggesting the possibility of phase control in relation to the pair creation processes.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Interior error estimate for periodic homogenization

In a previous article about the homogenization of the classical problem of diff usion in a bounded domain with su ciently smooth boundary we proved that the error is of order $\epsilon^{1/2}$. Now, for an open set with su ciently smooth boundary $C^{1,1}$ and homogeneous Dirichlet or Neuman limits conditions we show that in any open set strongly included in the error is of order $\epsilon$. If the open set $\Omega\subset R^n$ is of polygonal (n=2) or polyhedral (n=3) boundary we also give the global and interrior error estimates

Particle dynamics inside shocks in Hamilton-Jacobi equations

Characteristics of a Hamilton-Jacobi equation can be seen as action minimizing trajectories of fluid particles. For nonsmooth "viscosity" solutions, which give rise to discontinuous velocity fields, this description is usually pursued only up to the moment when trajectories hit a shock and cease to minimize the Lagrangian action. In this paper we show that for any convex Hamiltonian there exists a uniquely defined canonical global nonsmooth coalescing flow that extends particle trajectories and determines dynamics inside the shocks. We also provide a variational description of the corresponding effective velocity field inside shocks, and discuss relation to the "dissipative anomaly" in the limit of vanishing viscosity.Comment: 15 pages, no figures; to appear in Philos. Trans. R. Soc. series