PAIR PRODUCTION IN A STRONG WAKE FIELD DRIVEN BY AN INTENSE SHORT LASER-PULSE

A preliminary investigation is presented of electron-positron pair production by means of plasma electrons accelerated by relativistic velocities in a strong wake field. The propagation distance of the plasma wake field, which is determined by the depletion of the short laser pulse due to wake-field generation, is much larger than the pulse length. For this case, the total number of electron-positron pairs produced is independent of the plasma concentration. For achievable parameters of the laser pulse, the total number of pairs may be quite significant (approximately 10(6)Z2, where Z is the nuclear charge of the plasma ion).