Entanglement and pair production in intense electromagnetic fields

S. Tang, B. Dillon, B. King

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We investigate the spin correlations between electron-positron pairs created from a photon when it scatters in a high-intensity laser pulse via the nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process. We find that the spin states of the generated electron-positron pair can exhibit strong entanglement, with the degree being sensitive to the photon energy, laser intensity, and the relative polarization of the photon and laser pulse. Photons with a high degree of polarization can create strongly entangled pairs even in the intermediate intensity (nonperturbative) regime. We find that if the photons are provided by a Compton source, strongly spin-entangled electron-positron pairs can be generated with technology available today.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)056032-1 - 056032-18
Number of pages18
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume112
Issue number5
Early online date26 Sept 2025
DOIs
Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 26 Sept 2025

Data Access Statement

The data that support the findings of this article are not publicly available. The data are available from the authors upon reasonable request.

Funding

S. T. acknowledges support from the Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, Grant No. ZR2021QA088.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Entanglement and pair production in intense electromagnetic fields'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this