Pair Production by two photons : energy range of the electron created

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This discussion focuses on pair production by two photons, specifically analyzing the energy range of the electron created in this process. The user references Aharonian's 1983 paper, "Photoproduction of electron-positron pairs in compact x-ray sources," to understand the conditions under which an electron-positron pair is generated. Key variables include the four-momentum vectors of the photons and the resulting electron's energy, with the user successfully deriving the first equation from the inequalities provided in the paper. The conversation highlights the importance of manipulating variables such as energy (E) and momentum (p) to derive the necessary equations.

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Hi all,

I'm currently studying pair production by two photons (a high-energy one traveling in a isotropic field of low-energy ones), and I'm trying to understand the energy range of the electron created by this phenomenon.
For this, I'm studying an old paper from Aharonian 1983, "Photoproduction of electron-positron pairs in compact x-ray sources".
The situation is the following : we consider a cloud of isotropically distributed photons with four-momentum vectors k_1^{\mu} = (\omega_1, \stackrel{\rightarrow}{k_1}), k_2^{\mu} = (\omega_2, \stackrel{\rightarrow}{k_2}), with \omega_1 \leq \omega_2, creating an electron-positron pair with four-momentum vectors p_{\pm}^{\mu} = (\epsilon_{\pm}, \stackrel{\rightarrow}{p_{\pm}}).
Let \stackrel{\rightarrow}{k} = \stackrel{\rightarrow}{k_1} + \stackrel{\rightarrow}{k_2} be the total momentum of the two-photons system, and E = \omega_1 + \omega_2 , \Delta = \omega_2 - \omega_1.
I attached the page of the paper where my "problem" is. I understand how he gets the inequality \sqrt{ k^2 + \epsilon^2 -2kp} \leq E - \epsilon \leq \sqrt{ k^2 + \epsilon^2 +2kp}, but then even when I try to replace \epsilon by the new variable x = \epsilon - \frac{E}{2} and to use p = \sqrt{ \epsilon^2 -1} (in natural units), I don't get the equations (21).

If some of you had some ideas of how to get them, it would help me a lot, 'cause it's kind of obsessing me right now ! Thank you for reading this message anyway :smile:.
 

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What do you get, instead of the equations 21?
As they don't have ##\epsilon## and p any more, an obvious solving method is to replace them in the inequality, and then solve it for x and k respectively.
 
Thanks, I finally managed to get the first equation of 21 and then I realized that the two other ones just come from this one ... Thanks again :smile: !
 

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