Published October 1, 2010 | Version v1
Journal article

Experimental investigation of strong field trident production

  • 1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus (Denmark)
  • 2. University of Florence, Florence (Italy)
  • 3. Universidade de Coimbra (Portugal)
  • 4. Free University, Amsterdam (Netherlands)
  • 5. University of Istanbul, Istanbul (Turkey)
  • 6. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia (United States)
  • 7. University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg (South Africa)

Description

We show by experiment that an electron impinging on an electric field that is of critical magnitude in its rest frame, may produce an electron-positron pair. Our measurements address higher-order QED, using the strong electric fields obtainable along particular crystallographic directions in single crystals. For the amorphous material our data are in good agreement with theory, whereas a discrepancy with theory on the magnitude of the trident enhancement is found in the precisely aligned case where the strong electric field acts.

Additional details

Identifiers

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Physical Review. D, Particles Fields
Journal Volume
82
Journal Issue
7
Journal Page Range
p. 072002-072002.12
ISSN
0556-2821
CODEN
PRVDAQ

Optional Information

Notes
(c) 2010 American Institute of Physics
Collaborations
CERN NA63