Electron-positron pair creation in ultrastrong laser pulses
Univ. Prof. Dr. Dr. Carsten Müller
Universität Düsseldorf
17:00 - 18:00 Tuesday 10 October 2017 KFU HS 05.01 Due to an enormous technological progress in recent years,
laser pulses with ultrahigh intensities can nowadays be produced
and a further increase is envisaged within the next generation of
large-scale laser facilities. In the talk, we shall describe - from a
theorist's perspective - the high-field physics that can be probed
with these novel sources of electromagnetic radiation. The focus
will be laid on laser-induced decay of the quantum vacuum into
pairs of electrons and positrons. This way, the electromagnetic
energy of a huge number of photons in an ultrastrong laser pulse
is transformed into massive particles. Various characteristic regimes
of laser-matter interaction, including the fully nonperturbative domain,
will be identified, and analogies with related processes in atomic and
solid-state physics will be drawn.
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