Geometric limitations of the efficient generation of antihydrogen in an intense laser focus

The need to produce antihydrogen as fuel for interstellar missions has been discussed by Forward and others. The use of lasers (106 J, 300 fs pulses) may result in 106 times higher conversion efficiencies than the use of accelerators for antiproton production. One problem is the radial ejection of the relativistically oscillating particles from the laser focus. A numerical calculation of the quiver drift has been performed and it was found that for the focus geometries of present day technologies, the interaction time is not too long for achieving the necessary trident pair production in the laser focus. (orig.)