The feasibility of obtaining exact analytical results in the realm of QED in the presence of a background electromagnetic field is almost exclusively limited to a few tractable cases, where the Dirac equation in the corresponding background field can be solved analytically. This circumstance has restricted, in particular, the theoretical analysis of QED processes in intense laser fields to within the plane-wave approximation even at those high intensities, achievable experimentally only by tightly focusing the laser energy in space. Here, within the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) or eikonal approximation, we construct analytically single-particle electron states in the presence of a background electromagnetic field of general space-time structure in the realistic assumption that the initial energy of the electron is the largest dynamical energy scale in the problem. The relatively compact expression of these states opens, in particular, the possibility of investigating analytically strong-field QED processes in the presence of spatially focused laser beams, which is of particular relevance in view of the upcoming experimental campaigns in this field.
We compute electromagnetic fields created by a relativistic charged spin-half particle in empty space at distances comparable to the particle Compton wavelength. The particle is described as a wave packet evolving according to the Dirac equation. It produces the electromagnetic field that is essentially different from the Coulomb field due to the quantum diffusion effect.
Electromagnetic field of a fast electric charge in nuclear matter with spatially uniform but random topological charge density is derived. A useful approximation is developed for the relativistic heavy-ion collisions.
The generation of narrow beams of high-energy positrons (electrons) in the process of resonant photogeneration of ultrarelativistic electron-positron pairs by high-energy gamma quanta in the field of the nucleus and a strong electromagnetic wave is theoretically predicted. It is shown that if the energy of the initial gamma quanta significantly exceeds the characteristic energy of the process, then ultrarelativistic positrons (for channel A) or electrons (for channel B) are emitted with energies very close to the energy of gamma quanta. Moreover, the resonant differential cross-section of such…
We estimate the electromagnetic effect of the spectator charge on the momentum spectra of $π^+$ and $π^-$ produced in peripheral Pb+Pb collisions at SPS energies. We find that the effect is large and results in strongly varying structures in the $x_F$ dependence of the $π^+/π^-$ ratio, especially at low transverse momenta where a deep valley in the above ratio is predicted at $x_F \sim$ 0.15 -- 0.20. It appears that the effect depends on initial conditions. Thus, it provides new information on the space and time evolution of the non-perturbative pion creation process.
An extraordinary strong magnetic field, $eB_0 \approx 10^{18}$ Gauss, is expected to be generated in non-central ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions and it is envisaged to induce several effects on hot QCD matter including the possibility of local parity and local parity and charge conjugation symmetry violations. A direct signature of such e.m. fields and a first quantitative measurement of its strength and lifetime are still missing. We point out that both the mean value of leptonic invariant mass of $Z^0$ boson, reconstructed by its decaying lepton pairs, and the relative width are modif…
Heavy quarks are valuable probes of the electromagnetic field and the initial condition of the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) matter produced in high-energy nuclear collisions. Within an improved Langevin model that is coupled to a (3+1)-dimensional viscous hydrodynamic model, we explore the origin of the directed flow coefficient ($v_1$) of heavy mesons and their decay leptons, and its splitting ($Δv_{1}$) between opposite charges. We find that while the rapidity dependence of the heavy flavor $v_1$ is mainly driven by the titled energy density profile of the QGP with respect to the longitudinal di…
In ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions at $\sqrt{s} >$ 20 (120) A$\cdot$GeV a copious production of charm (bottom) production sets in which, via correlated semileptonic $D \bar D$ ($B \bar B$) decays, gives rise to a dilepton yield at invariant mass $M \approx$ 2 -- 3 GeV in excess of the Drell-Yan yield and the thermal dilepton signal from deconfined matter as well. We show that appropriate single-electron transverse momentum cuts (suitable for ALICE at LHC) cause a threshold like behavior of the dilepton spectra from heavy-quark meson decays and the Drell-Yan process and can allow to obse…
We present a new approach for calculating electromagnetic excitation of nuclei as well as probabilities of emission and distributions of neutrons from decays of excited nuclear systems for ultrarelativistic, ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions. Excitation functions for $γ$ + Pb $\to$ Pb$^*$ are parametrized using physics-motivated components: excitation of giant resonances, quasi-deuteron absorption mechanism, excitation of nucleon resonances as well as high-energy dissociation of protons and neutrons. Neutron emission (up to 10 neutrons) from low-energy excitations of $^{208}$Pb is modelled …
HIJING generator simulation of nucleus-nucleus collisions at ultrarelativistic energies are presented. Is shown, that the global characteristics of nucleus-nucleus collisions, such as of distribution of a charge multiplicity, total and electromagnetic transverse energy over pseudorapidity are rather sensitive to some predictions of formation models of high-exited nuclear medium, namely parton energy losses in dense nuclear matter. This losses results to appearance of a broad maximum in global variable distributions over pseudorapidity. The most profound of this effect occurs at central heavy i…
The actual theoretical research investigates the resonant spontaneous bremsstrahlung (RSB) of ultrarelativistic electrons under the condition of scattering on a nucleus in the field of a weak electromagnetic wave. The progression of the functional mechanism indicates the transformation of the intermediate virtual electron into the real particle state. As a result, the initial second order process with accordance to the fine structure constant in the light field productively splits into two consequent first order formations: the laser-stimulated Compton effect and the laser-assisted scattering …
We propose the experiments on the collision of laser light and high intensity electromagnetic pulses generated by relativistic flying mirrors, with electron bunches produced by a conventional accelerator and with laser wake field accelerated electrons for studying extreme field limits in the nonlinear interaction of electromagnetic waves. The regimes of dominant radiation reaction, which completely changes the electromagnetic wave-matter interaction, will be revealed in the laser plasma experiments. This will result in a new powerful source of ultra short high brightness gamma-ray pulses. A po…
The radiative decay of the massive neutrino $ν_i \rightarrow ν_j γ$ is investigated in the framework of the Standard Model in external electromagnetic fields of various configurations: constant crossed field, constant uniform magnetic field, plane monochromatic wave's field. The effect of significant enhancement of the neutrino decay probability by the external field (electromagnetic catalysis) is discussed. An especially strong enhancement occurs in the case of the ultrarelativistic neutrino decay, since in this case the decay probability does not contain suppression caused by the smallness o…
The possibility of radiation of high-energy gamma quanta with energies of the order of 100 GeV by ultrarelativistic electrons on nuclei in strong X-ray fields with intensities up to $\sim 10^{27}\ \text{Wcm}^{-2}$ has been theoretically studied. It is shown that this effect can be realized under special experimental conditions in the process of resonant spontaneous bremsstrahlung radiation of ultrarelativistic electrons on nuclei in an external electromagnetic field. These special experimental conditions determine the characteristic energy of the electrons. This characteristic energy should be…
We estimate the electromagnetic effect of the spectator charge on the momentum spectra of charged pions produced in peripheral Pb+Pb collisions at SPS energies. We find a large effect which results in strongly varying structures in the $x_F$ dependence of the $π^+/π^-$ ratio, especially at low transverse momenta where a deep valley in the above ratio is predicted at $x_F \sim$ 0.15 -- 0.20. The effect depends on initial conditions. Thus, it provides new information on the space and time evolution of the non-perturbative pion creation process.
The solution of the plasmon problem and the subsequent development of an effective field theory approach to ultrarelativistic plasmas are reviewed. The effective lagrangians that summarize collective effects in ultrarelativistic quark-gluon and electron-photon plasmas are presented. A generalization that describes an electromagnetic plasma at all temperatures and densities is proposed.
We discuss the transverse momentum distribution of thermal and prompt photons in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions. The prompt photons are mostly produced by fragmentation of quark jets (bremsstrahlung). If these quark jets suffer a large energy loss in heavy-ion reactions, prompt photons are significantly suppressed. Thermal electromagnetic radiation from the quark-gluon plasma and the hadron gas might then dominate the intermediate k_T-range. In central Au+Au collisions at \sqrt{s}=200A GeV, and in the range 2 GeV < k_T < 4 GeV, the inverse slope of the thermal radiation is 360-460 MeV,…
Using the framework of wedge dynamics, we compute the effective transverse mass of a soft quark mode propagating in the expanding background of hard quarks and gluons created at the earliest time of the collision. We discover that the wedge dynamics does not require any external infrared or collinear cut-off. The effective mass is produced mainly due to the forward quark-quark scattering mediated by the longitudinal (in sense of Gauss' law) magnetic fields. Contribution of the radiation field is parametrically suppressed.
The problem of an ultrarelativistic charge in the presence of an atomic and a plane-wave field is investigated in the quasiclassical regime by including exactly the effects of both background fields. Starting from the quasiclassical Green's function obtained in [Phys. Lett. B \textbf{717}, 224 (2012)], the corresponding in- and out-wave functions are derived in the experimentally relevant case of the particle initially counterpropagating with respect to the plane wave. The knowledge of these electron wave functions opens the possibility of investigating a variety of problems in strong-field QE…
We disuss exclusive electromagnetic production of two neutral $ρ^0$~mesons and show the predictions for the $AA \to AA ρ^0 ρ^0$ reactions for gold-gold collisions at the energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 200 GeV (RHIC) and for lead-lead collisions at the energy of $\sqrt{s}$ = 5.5 TeV (LHC). The elementary cross section is calculated with the help of the vector-dominance-model (VDM)-Regge approach which usually very well describes the experimental data at large $γγ$ energy. The low-energy $γγ\to ρ^0 ρ^0$ cross section is parametrized. The cross section for nuclear process is calculated by means of the eq…
We compute the electromagnetic field created by an ultrarelativistic charged particle in vacuum at distances comparable to the particle Compton wavelength. The wave function of the particle is governed by the Klein-Gordon equation, for a scalar particle, or the Dirac equation, for a spin-half particle. The produced electromagnetic field is essentially different in magnitude and direction from the Coulomb field, induced by a classical point charge, due to the quantum diffusion effect. Thus, a realistic computation of the electromagnetic field produced in heavy-ion collisions must be based upon …
The radiative decay of ultrarelativistic massive neutrino $ν_i \rightarrow ν_j γ$ is investigated in electromagnetic fields in the framework of the Standard Model with lepton mixing. Estimates of the decay probability and ``decay cross-section'' for accelerator neutrinos of high energies in the electric field of nucleus permit one to discuss the general possibility of carrying out the neutrino experiment. Such an experiment could give unique information on mixing angles in the lepton sector of the Standard Model which would be almost independent of the specific neutrino masses.
The radiative decay of the massive neutrino $ν_i \rightarrow ν_j γ( m_i > m_j )$ in the external electromagnetic field is analyzed in detail in the framework of the standard model with lepton mixing. It is shown, that a sort of a catalysis of the neutrino radiative decay takes place. The effect of catalysis is significant in the strong electromagnetic fields ($F \gg B_e = m^2_e / e \simeq 4.41 \cdot 10^{13}$ G) ; it is more pronounced in the case of the decay of the ultrarelativistic neutrino $(E_ν \gg m_ν)$, even in a relatively weak electromagnetic field ($F \ll m^2_e/e$).
The resonant photoproduction of ultrarelativistic electron-positron pairs (PPP) in a nuclear field and a weak laser field is theoretically studied. Under resonance conditions, the intermediate virtual electron (positron) in the laser field becomes a real particle. As a result, the initial process of the second order in the fine structure constant in the laser field effectively reduces into two successive processes of the first order: single-photon production of electron-positron pair in a laser field (laser-stimulated Breit-Wheeler process) and laser-assisted process of electron (positron) sca…
Charged particles accelerated by electromagnetic fields emit radiation, which must, by the conservation of momentum, exert a recoil on the emitting particle. The force of this recoil, known as radiation reaction, strongly affects the dynamics of ultrarelativistic electrons in intense electromagnetic fields. Such environments are found astrophysically, e.g. in neutron star magnetospheres, and will be created in laser-matter experiments in the next generation of high-intensity laser facilities. In many of these scenarios, the energy of an individual photon of the radiation can be comparable to t…
Exact solution of the DeWitt-Brehme-Hobbs equation in copropagating electromagnetic and gravitational waves
Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics（马克斯·普朗克核物理研究所）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester（罗切斯特大学物理与天文系）；Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Torino & INFN, Sezione di Torino（都灵大学物理系及意大利国家核物理研究院都灵分部）；Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester（罗切斯特大学激光能源实验室）
For complete development of quantum electrodynamics in the presence of a strong external field, the proper understanding of resonant processes and all their peculiarities is essential. We present our attempt to analytically investigate the resonant case of laser-assisted electron-positron pair photoproduction on a nucleus. Due to the presence of external field, the intermediate virtual particle may become real, herewith the second order process in the fine structure constant effectively reduces into the two successive first order processes. All inherent kinematics features were discussed in de…
Collective excitations of N = 1 supersymmetric electromagnetic plasma are studied. Since the Keldysh-Schwinger approach is used, not only equilibrium but also non-equilibrium plasma, which is assumed to be ultrarelativistic, is under consideration. The dispersion equations of photon, photino, electron and selectron modes are written down and the self-energies, which enter the equations, are computed in the Hard Loop Approximation. The self-energies are discussed in the context of effective action which is also given. The photon modes and electron ones appear to be the same as in the usual ultr…
The nonlinear interaction, due to quantum electrodynamical (QED) effects, between two electromagnetic pulses and a radiation gas is investigated. It is found that the governing equations admit both modulational and filamentational instabilities. The instability growth rates are derived, and the results are discussed.
The amplitude for Higgs boson decay into two photons in a homogeneous and time-independent magnetic field is investigated by proper-time regularization in a gauge invariant manner and is found to be singular at large field values. The singularity is caused by the component of the charged vector boson field that is tachyonic in a strong magnetic field. Also tools for the computation of the amplitude in a more general electromagnetic background are developed.
When two electromagnetic fields counterpropagate, they are modified due to mutual interaction via the polarised virtual electron-positron states of the vacuum. By studying how photon-photon scattering effects such as birefringence and four-wave mixing evolve as the fields pass through one another, we find a significant increase during overlap. The results have particular relevance for calculations based on a constant field background.
Invited talk given at Symposium "Extreme Light Technologies, Science, and Applications" (LPHYS'16, Yerevan, 11-15 July 2016). The old Ritus-Narozhny conjecture of possible breakdown of Intense Field QED perturbation theory for ultrarelativistic particles passing transversely through a strong electromagnetic field is reviewed with a special emphasis on its possible significance for near-future experiments.
Electromagnetic waves in a dynamical axion background exhibit superluminal group velocities at high frequencies and instabilities at low frequencies, altering how photons propagate through space. Local disturbances propagate causally, but unlike in ordinary Maxwell theory, propagation occurs inside as well as on the lightcone. For the unstable modes, the energy density in the electromagnetic field grows exponentially along timelike displacements. In this paper we derive retarded Green functions in axion electrodynamics in various limits and study the time-domain properties of propagating signa…
Resonant production of millicharged scalars in $k^2>0$ electromagnetic wave background
Institute for Nuclear Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences（俄罗斯科学院核物理研究所）；Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University（莫斯科国立大学物理系）；Branch of Lomonosov Moscow State University in Sarov（萨罗夫莫斯科国立大学分院）
Collisional processes in ultrarelativistic N=1 SUSY QED plasma are studied and compared to those in an electromagnetic plasma of electrons, positrons and photons. Cross sections of all binary interactions which occur in the supersymmetric plasma at the order of e^4 are computed. Some processes, in particular the Compton scattering on selectrons, appear to be independent of momentum transfer and thus they are qualitatively different from processes in an electromagnetic plasma. It suggests that transport properties of the SUSY plasma are different than those of its non-supersymmetric counterpart…
Nonuniform background electromagnetic fields, once implemented in lattice quantum chromodynamics calculations of hadronic systems, provide a means to constrain a large class of electromagnetic properties of hadrons and nuclei, from their higher electromagnetic moments and charge radii to their electromagnetic form factors. We show how nonuniform fields can be constructed on a periodic hypercubic lattice under certain conditions and determine the precise form of the background U(1) gauge links that must be imposed on the quantum chromodynamics gauge-field configurations to maintain periodicity.…
The mixing of photons with light pseudoscalars in the presence of external electromagnetic fields has been used extensively to search for axion-like-particles. A similar effect for dark photon propagating states is usually not considered due to the Landau-Yang theorem. We point out that mixing between photon and dark photon propagating states in background electromagnetic fields can indeed occur, in non-linear QED, through a four-photon vertex by integrating out the electron box diagram. Starting from the Schwinger Lagrangian, we derive the equations of motion for dark photons interacting with…
The quantum field theory in the presence of classical background electromagnetic fields is reviewed. We give a pedagogical introduction to the Feynman-Furry method of describing non-perturbative interactions with very strong electromagnetic fields. A particular emphasis is given to the case of the plane-wave electromagnetic field for which the charged particles' wave functions and propagators are presented. Some general features of quantum processes proceeding in the intense electromagnetic background are argued. We also discuss the possibilities of searching new physics through the investigat…
We derive fully explicit equations of motion, and the associated set of constraints, describing the propagation in a flat space-time of a charged spin-3/2 massive state in a constant electromagnetic background. For this purpose, we provide the Lagrangian for the physical fermionic fields in the first massive level of the open superstring. We first write a compact Lagrangian, allowing a simple derivation of the equations of motion and constraints. Then another one is given that yields directly a decoupled system of equations, though the fields of different spins look coupled at the level of the…
Minimal coupling leads to problems such as loss of causality if one wants to describe charged particles of spin greater than one propagating in a constant electromagnetic background. Regge trajectories in string theory contain such states, so their study may allow us to investigate possible avenues to remedy the pathologies. We present here two explicit forms, related by field redefinitions, of the Lagrangian describing the bosonic states in the first massive level of open superstrings in four dimensions. The first one reduces, when the electromagnetic field is set to zero, to the Fierz-Pauli …
We attempt to evaluate the effective Lagrangian for a classical background field interacting with the vacuum of two quantum fields. The integration of one of the quantum fields in general leads to a non-local term in the effective Lagrangian and thus becomes intractable during the integration of the other quantum field. We show that $ϕF \tilde{K}$ interaction is an exception. We present the complete calculation for the evaluation of the effective Lagrangian for a pseudoscalar field interacting with photons in the presence of a background electromagnetic field. Expression for the probability of…
The response of the hot QCD medium in the presence of external time dependent electromagnetic fields has been studied within the relativistic Boltzmann transport theory. The impact of the time dependence of the electromagnetic fields and collisional aspects of the medium to the induced electric and Hall current densities has been explored. The non-equilibrium momentum distribution of degrees of freedom has been obtained in the presence of space-time varying electromagnetic fields. Further, the analysis has been extended to an anisotropic QCD medium while incorporating the in-medium interaction…
We discuss our study of QCD in the presence of CP-odd electromagnetic (e.m.) background fields. We investigate the propagation of the CP-odd term from the e.m. sector to the strong sector, inducing an effective $θ$ term. We discuss the method we have used in our lattice QCD simulations, and the results of our analysis, which are relevant to the determination of the effective pseudoscalar QED-QCD interactions. We also explore how these CP-odd e.m. background fields influence the number of the Dirac zero modes in our configurations.
We investigate two flavor QCD in presence of CP-odd electromagnetic background fields and determine, by means of lattice QCD simulations, the induced effective theta term to the first order in the scalar product of E and B. We employ a rooted staggered discretization and study lattice spacings down to 0.1 fm and Goldstone pion masses around 480 MeV. In order to deal with a positive measure, we consider purely imaginary electric fields and real magnetic fields, then exploiting analytic continuation. Our results are relevant to a description of the effective pseudoscalar QED-QCD interactions.
In the in-out formalism we advance a method of the inverse scattering matrix for calculating effective actions in pure magnetic field backgrounds. The one-loop effective actions are found in a localized magnetic field of Sauter type and approximately in a general magnetic field by applying the uniform semiclassical approximation. The effective actions exhibit the electromagnetic duality between a constant electric field and a constant magnetic field and between $E(x) = E sech^2 (x/L)$ and $B(x) = B sech^2 (x/L)$.
Aspects of the dilepton spectrum in heavy-ion collisions are discussed, with special emphasis on using lattice computations to guide the phenomenology of finite temperature hadronic matter. The background rates for continuum dileptons expected in forthcoming experiments are summarised. Properly augmented by data from ongoing measurements at HERA, these rates will serve as a calibrating background for QGP searches. Recent results on the temperature dependence of the hadronic spectrum obtained in lattice computations below the deconfinement transition are summarised. Light vector meson masses ar…
The low-energy structure of hadrons can be described systematically using effective field theory, and the parameters of the effective theory can be determined from lattice QCD computations. Recent work, however, points to inconsistencies between the background field method in lattice QCD and effective field theory matching conditions. We show that the background field problem necessitates inclusion of operators related by equations of motion. In the presence of time-dependent electromagnetic fields, for example, such operators modify Green's functions, thereby complicating the isolation of had…
