Measurement of e^{+}e^{-} Momentum and Angular Distributions from Linearly Polarized Photon Collisions.

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Abstract

The Breit-Wheeler process which produces matter and antimatter from photon collisions is experimentally investigated through the observation of 6085 exclusive electron-positron pairs in ultraperipheral Au+Au collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200 GeV. The measurements reveal a large fourth-order angular modulation of cos4Δϕ=(16.8±2.5)% and smooth invariant mass distribution absent of vector mesons (ϕ, ω, and ρ) at the experimental limit of ≤0.2% of the observed yields. The differential cross section as a function of e^{+}e^{-} pair transverse momentum P_{⊥} peaks at low value with sqrt[⟨P_{⊥}^{2}⟩]=38.1±0.9 MeV and displays a significant centrality dependence. These features are consistent with QED calculations for the collision of linearly polarized photons quantized from the extremely strong electromagnetic fields generated by the highly charged Au nuclei at ultrarelativistic speed. The experimental results have implications for vacuum birefringence and for mapping the magnetic field which is important for emergent QCD phenomena.

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Journal

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Phys Rev Lett

Title: Physical review letters

Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)

ISSN (Electronic): 1079-7114

ISSN (Print): 0031-9007

Publication date (Electronic): Jul 30 2021

Volume: 127

Issue: 5

Affiliations

[1 ] Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973.

[2 ] AGH University of Science and Technology, FPACS, Cracow 30-059, Poland.

[3 ] Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210.

[4 ] University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0055.

[5 ] Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Dubna 141 980, Russia.

[6 ] Panjab University, Chandigarh 160014, India.

[7 ] Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Kolkata 700064, India.

[8 ] Alikhanov Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics NRC "Kurchatov Institute," Moscow 117218, Russia.

[9 ] National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Moscow 115409, Russia.

[10 ] Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843.

[11 ] Central China Normal University, Wuhan, Hubei 430079.

[12 ] Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242.

[13 ] Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Berhampur 760010, India.

[14 ] University of California, Riverside, California 92521.

[15 ] State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York 11794.

[16 ] University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204.

[17 ] University of Jammu, Jammu 180001, India.

[18 ] Czech Technical University in Prague, FNSPE, Prague 115 19, Czech Republic.

[19 ] Nuclear Physics Institute of the CAS, Rez 250 68, Czech Republic.

[20 ] Shandong University, Qingdao, Shandong 266237.

[21 ] Rice University, Houston, Texas 77251.

[22 ] Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520.

[23 ] University of California, Davis, California 95616.

[24 ] University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095.

[25 ] National Cheng Kung University, Tainan 70101.

[26 ] Fudan University, Shanghai 200433.

[27 ] University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026.

[28 ] Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084.

[29 ] Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska 68178.

[30 ] University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.

[31 ] ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest H-1117, Hungary.

[32 ] Abilene Christian University, Abilene, Texas 79699.

[33 ] University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg 69120, Germany.

[34 ] NRC "Kurchatov Institute", Institute of High Energy Physics, Protvino 142281, Russia.

[35 ] Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720.

[36 ] Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907.

[37 ] Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 48201.

[38 ] University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8571, Japan.

[39 ] University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60607.

[40 ] Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015.

[41 ] Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, Connecticut 06515.

[42 ] Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt 64289, Germany.

[43 ] Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana 46383.

[44 ] Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, Tirupati 517507, India.

[45 ] American University of Cairo, New Cairo, New Cairo 11835, Egypt.

[46 ] Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, Gansu 730000.

[47 ] Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802.

[48 ] Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47408.

[49 ] Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw 00-661, Poland.

[50 ] Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies FIAS, Frankfurt 60438, Germany.

[51 ] Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439.

[52 ] Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800.

[53 ] Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122.

[54 ] National Institute of Science Education and Research, HBNI, Jatni 752050, India.

[55 ] University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712.

[56 ] Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854.

[57 ] Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN, Cracow 31-342, Poland.

[58 ] Max-Planck-Institut für Physik, Munich 80805, Germany.

[59 ] Indian Institute Technology, Patna, Bihar 801106, India.

[60 ] Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo 05314-970, Brazil.

[61 ] Huzhou University, Huzhou, Zhejiang 313000.

[62 ] Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824.

[63 ] United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland 21402.

Article

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.052302

PubMed ID: 34397228

SO-VID: 729c9872-0269-4189-870b-46c23287e77a

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