Fully polarized nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production in pulsed plane waves

Abstract: Fully polarized nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production from a beam of polarized seed photons is investigated in pulsed plane-wave backgrounds. The particle (electron and positron) spin and photon polarization are comprehensively described with the theory of the density matrix. The compact expressions for the energy spectrum and spin polarization of the produced particles, depending on the initial polarization of the seed photon beam, are derived and discussed in both linearly and circularly polarized laser backgrounds. The numerical results suggest an appreciable improvement of the positron yield by orthogonalizing the photon polarization to the laser polarization, and the generation of a highly polarized positron beam from a beam of circularly polarized seed photons. The locally monochromatic approximation and the locally constant field approximation are derived and benchmarked with the full quantum electrodynamic calculations.