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We present a theoretical investigation of the Vavilov-Cherenkov (VC) radiation by a plane-wave or twisted electron. Special emphasis is put on the question whether and at what conditions the emitted VC photons can be twisted. For this aim we obtain a general expression in the coordinate and momentum representations for the quantum state of the final electron-photon system that is a result of the radiation process itself and does not depend on the properties of a detector. It is shown that this evolved state is an entangled state of an electron and a photon, and both particles can be twisted. A direct consequence of this result follows: if one uses a detector sensitive to the twisted electron (photon) with the definite projection of the total angular momentum (TAM), then the final photon (electron) also will be in the twisted state with a definite TAM projection. Further, we investigate the polarization properties of the final twisted photon in more general conditions than has been calculated before. Finally, we exploit a close similarity between the discussed VC radiation and the process of the equivalent photon emission in the Weizs\"acker-Williams method and find the corresponding final state., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures; a new section added, discussion extended more...

Physics of structured waves is currently limited to relatively small particle energies as the available generation techniques are only applicable to the soft $X$-ray twisted photons, to the beams of electron microscopes, to cold neutrons, or non-relativistic atoms. The highly energetic vortex particles with an orbital angular momentum would come in handy for a number of experiments in atomic physics, nuclear, hadronic, and accelerator physics, and to generate them one needs to develop alternative methods, applicable for ultrarelativistic energies and for composite particles. Here, we show that the vortex states of in principle arbitrary particles can be generated during photon emission in helical undulators, via Cherenkov radiation, in collisions of charged particles with intense laser beams, in such scattering or annihilation processes as $e\mu \to e\mu, ep \to ep, e^-e^+ \to p\bar{p}$, and so forth. The key element in obtaining them is the postselection protocol due to entanglement between a pair of final particles and it is largely not the process itself. The state of a final particle -- be it a $\gamma$-ray, a hadron, a nucleus, or an ion -- becomes twisted if the azimuthal angle of the other particle momentum is measured with a large error or is not measured at all. As a result, requirements to the beam transverse coherence can be greatly relaxed, which enables the generation of highly energetic vortex beams at accelerators and synchrotron radiation facilities, thus making them a new tool for hadronic and spin studies. more...

The hard X-ray twisted photons and relativistic massive particles with orbital angular momentum -- vortex electrons, muons, protons, etc. -- have many potential applications in high-energy and nuclear physics. However, such states can be obtained so far mainly via diffraction techniques, not applicable for relativistic energies. Here we show that the vortex states of different particles, including hadrons, ions, and nuclei, can be generated in a large class of processes with two final particles simply by altering a postselection protocol. Thanks to entanglement and to the uncertainty relations, an evolved state of a final particle becomes twisted if the momentum azimuthal angle of the other particle is measured with a large uncertainty. We give several examples, including Cherenkov and undulator radiation, particle collisions with intense laser beams, $e\mu \to e\mu, ep \to ep$. This technique can be adapted for ultrarelativistic lepton and hadron beams of linear colliders, and it can also facilitate the development of sources of X-ray and $\gamma$-range twisted photons at storage rings and free-electron lasers., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures more...

We present a theoretical formalism for scattering of the twisted neutrons by nuclei in a kinematic regime where interference between Coulomb interaction and the strong interaction is essential. Twisted neutrons have definite quantized values of an angular momentum projection along the direction of propagation, and we show that it results in novel observable effects for the scattering cross section, spin asymmetries and polarization of the scattered neutrons. We demonstrate that additional capabilities provided by beam's orbital angular momentum enable new techniques for measuring both real and imaginary parts of the scattering amplitude. Several possible observables are considered, for which the targets may be either well-localized with respect to the spatial beam profile, or the scattering occurs incoherently on nuclei in a bulk target. The developed approach can be applied to other nuclear reactions with strongly interacting twisted particles., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures; typos and references fixed more...

We consider the electron-positron pair production in relativistic heavy ion collisions, in which the produced electron is captured by one of the nuclei resulting, thus, in the formation of a hydrogen--like ion. These ions emerge from the collision point and hit the vacuum chamber wall inside superconducting magnets. Therefore, this process may be important for the problems of beam life time and for the quenching the irradiated magnet. A theoretical investigation for such a bound-free pair production (BFPP) at the colliders from NICA to HE LHC is presented. We obtain an approximate universal formula for the total cross section of the process. We compare it with the results of available numerical calculations and estimate that an accuracy of our calculations is better than $30$ % at the energies of the NICA collider and becomes of the order of a few percent for the RHIC and HE LHC colliders. Based on the obtained results, the detailed calculations are performed for future experiments at the NICA collider. We find that the expected BFPP cross sections for the Au$^{79+}$-Au$^{79+}$ and Bi$^{83+}$-Bi$^{83+}$ collisions are in the range from $10$ to $70$ barn, while for the p-Au$^{79+}$ and p-Bi$^{83+}$ collisions they are in the range of a few mbarn., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures more...

Thanks to J.~Schwinger, the process of elastic scattering of neutrons by nuclei is known to depend on the interference between a nuclear amplitude and an electromagnetic one for small scattering angles, resulting in spin asymmetries of a cross section or in polarization of the scattered neutrons. While this interference depends on the neutron's {\it transverse} polarization and on {\it an imaginary part} of the nuclear amplitude, this conclusion holds only for the incident plane-wave neutrons with a definite momentum. Here we show that this scattering is altered when the twisted neutrons, recently obtained experimentally, are used instead -- that is, neutrons with an orbital angular momentum. For bulk targets, the angular distributions of the scattered neutrons get modified, while scattering of a superposition of states with the different angular momenta also reveals dependence on the longitudinal polarization. For well-localized targets, the observables develop a dependence on the neutron's {\it helicity} and on {\it a real part} of the nuclear amplitude, providing full access to its phase already in the Born approximation. We argue that the corresponding spin asymmetries are measurable at existing neutron facilities. Thus, scattering of the twisted neutrons by nuclei can provide means for quantum tomography of the neutron states and become a useful tool for hadronic studies, low-energy nuclear physics, tests of fundamental symmetries, and neutron optics., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; revised version includes an additional figure more...

The potential scattering of electrons carrying non--zero quanta of the orbital angular momentum (OAM) is studied in a framework of the generalized Born approximation, developed in our recent paper by Karlovets \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. A. {\textbf 92}, 052703 (2015). We treat these so--called \textit{twisted} electrons as spatially localized wave--packets. The simple and convenient expressions are derived for a number of scattering events in collision of such a vortex electron with a single potential, located at a given impact parameter with respect to the wave-packet's axis. The more realistic scenarios are also considered with either localized (mesoscopic) targets or infinitely wide (macroscopic) ones that consist of the randomly distributed atoms. Dependence of the electron scattering pattern on a size and on a relative position of the target is studied in detail for all three scenarios of the single--potential--, mesoscopic-- and the macroscopic targets made of hydrogen in the ground $1s$ state. The results demonstrate that the angular distribution of the outgoing electrons can be very sensitive to the OAM and to kinematic parameters of the focused twisted beams, as well as to composition of the target. Scattering of vortex electrons by atoms can, therefore, serve as a valuable tool for diagnostic of such beams., Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures more...

We present a fully relativistic investigation of the radiative recombination of a twisted electron with a bare heavy nucleus. The twisted electron is described by the wave function which accounts for the interaction with the nucleus in all orders in $\alpha Z$. We use this wave function to derive the probability of the radiative recombination with a single ion being shifted from the twisted electron propagation direction. We also consider more realistic experimental scenarios where the target is either localized (mesoscopic) or infinitely wide (macroscopic). The situation when the incident electron is a coherent superposition of two vortex states is considered as well. For the nonrelativistic case we present analytical expressions which support our numerical calculations. We study in details the influence of the electron twistedness on the polarization and angular distribution of the emitted photon. It is found that these properties of the outgoing photon might be very sensitive to the total angular momentum and kinematic properties of twisted beams. Therefore, the recombination of the twisted electrons can serve as a valuable tool for atomic investigations as well as for the diagnostics of the vortex electron beams., Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures more...

We present the detailed quantum electrodynamical description of Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation emitted by a relativistic twisted electron in the transparent medium. Simple expressions for the spectral and spectral-angular distributions as well as for the polarization properties of the emitted radiation are obtained. Unlike the plane-wave case, the twisted electron produces radiation within the annular angular region, with enhancement towards its boundaries. Additionally, the emitted photons can have linear polarization not only in the scattering plane but also in the orthogonal direction. We find that the Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation emitted by an electron in a superposition of two vortex states exhibits a strong azimuthal asymmetry. Thus, the Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation offers itself as a convenient diagnostic tool of such electrons and complements the traditional microscopic imaging., Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures more...

Laser photons carrying non-zero orbital angular momentum are known and exploited during the last twenty years. Recently it has been demonstrated experimentally that such (twisted) electrons can be produced and even focused to a subnanometer scale. Thus, twisted electrons emerge as a new tool in atomic physics. The state of a twisted electron can be considered as a specific wave packet of plane waves. In the present paper-I we consider elastic scattering of the wave packets of fast non-relativistic particles on a potential field. We obtain simple and convenient formulae for a number of events in such a scattering. The equations derived represent, in fact, generalization of the well-known Born approximation for the case when finite sizes and inhomogeneity of the initial packet should be taken into account. To illustrate the obtained results, we consider two simple models corresponding to scattering of a Gaussian wave packet on the Gaussian potential and on the hydrogen atom. The scattering of twisted electrons on atoms will be considered in the next paper-II., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures more...

We present a theoretical study of a double lepton pair production in ultra--relativistic collision between two bare ions. Special emphasis is placed to processes in which creation of (at least one) $e^+ e^-$ pair is accompanied by the capture of an electron into a bound ionic state. To evaluate the probability and cross section of these processes we employ two approaches based on (i) the first--order perturbation theory and multipole expansion of Dirac wavefunctions, and (ii) the equivalent photon approximation. With the help of such approaches, detailed calculations are made for the creation of two bound--free $e^+ e^-$ pairs as well as of bound--free $e^+ e^-$ and free--free $\mu^+ \mu^-$ pairs in collisions of bare lead ions Pb$^{82+}$. The results of the calculations indicate that observation of the double lepton processes may become feasible at the LHC facility., Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure more...

A theoretical investigation of the bound-free electron-positron pair production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is presented. Special attention is paid to the positrons emitted under large angles with respect to the beam direction. The measurement of these positrons in coincidence with the down--charged ions is in principle feasible by LHC experiments. In order to provide reliable estimates for such measurements, we employ the equivalent photon approximation together with the Sauter approach and derive simple analytic expressions for the differential pair--production cross section, which compare favorably to the results of available numerical calculations. Based on the analytic expressions, detailed calculations are performed for collisions of bare Pb$^{82+}$ ions, taking typical experimental conditions of the LHC experiments into account. We find that the expected count rate strongly depends on the experimental parameters and may be significantly enhanced by increasing the positron-detector acceptance cone., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures more...

High-energy photons and other particles carrying non-zero orbital angular momentum (OAM) emerge as a new tool in high-energy physics. Recently, it was suggested to generate high-energy photons with non-zero OAM (twisted photons) by the Compton backscattering of laser twisted photons on relativistic electron beams. Twisted electrons in the intermediate energy range have also been demostrated experimentally; twisted protons and other particles can in principle be created in a similar way. Collisions of energetic twisted states can offer a new look at particle properties and interactions. A theoretical description of twisted particle scattering developed previously treated them as pure Bessel states and ran into difficulty when describing the OAM of the final twisted particle at non-zero scattering angles. Here we develop further this formalism by incorporating two additional important features. First, we treat the initial OAM state as a wave packet of a finite transverse size rather than a pure Bessel state. This realistic assumption allows us to resolve the existing controversy between two theoretical analyses for non-forward scattering. Second, we describe the final twisted particle in terms of the orbital helicity --- the OAM projection on its average direction of propagation rather than on the fixed reaction axis. Using this formalism, we determine to what extent the twisted state is transferred from the initial to final OAM particle in a generic scattering kinematics. As a particular application, we prove that in the Compton backscattering the orbital helicity of the final photon stays close to the OAM projection of the initial photon., Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures; v2: expanded introduction and section 4.2 on final orbital helicity more...

Twisted photons are not plane waves, but superpositions of plane waves with a defined projection hbar m of the orbital angular momentum onto the propagation axis (m is integer and may attain values m >> 1). Here, we describe in detail the possibility to produce high-energy twisted photons by backward Compton scattering of twisted laser photons on ultra-relativistic electrons with a Lorentz-factor gamma=E/(m_e c^2) >> 1. When a twisted laser photon with the energy hbar omega ~ 1 eV performs a collision with an electron and scatters backward, the final twisted photon conserves the angular momentum m, but its energy hbar omega' is increased considerably: omega'/omega=4 gamma^2/(1+x), where x=4E hbar omega/(m_e c^2)^2. The S matrix formalism for the description of scattering processes is particularly simple for plane waves with definite 4-momenta. However, in the considered case, this formalism must be enhanced because the quantum state of twisted particles cannot be reduced to plane waves. This implies that the usual notion of a cross section is inapplicable, and we introduce and calculate an averaged cross section for a quantitative description of the process. The energetic upconversion of twisted photons may be of interest for experiments with the excitation and disintegration of atoms and nuclei, and for studying the photo-effect and pair production off nuclei in previously unexplored regimes., Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX; some typographical errors corrected more...

Usually, photons are described by plane waves with a definite 4-momentum. In addition to plane-wave photons, "twisted photons" have recently entered the field of modern laser optics; these are coherent superpositions of plane waves with a defined projection hbar*m of the orbital angular momentum onto the propagation axis, where m is integer. In this paper, we show that it is possible to produce high-energy twisted photons by Compton backscattering of twisted laser photons off ultra-relativistic electrons. Such photons may be of interest for experiments related to the excitation and disintegration of atoms and nuclei, and for studying the photo-effect and pair production off nuclei in previously unexplored experimental regimes., Comment: 4 pages; RevTeX more...

We study in detail the influence of the nuclear form factor both on the Born cross section and on the Coulomb corrections to the photo-production of muon pairs off heavy nuclei (gamma Z -> mu+ mu- Z$) and in heavy-ion collisions (ZZ -> ZZ mu+ mu-). Our findings indicate a number of issues which have not been sufficiently described as yet in the literature: (i) the use of a realistic form factor, based on the Fermi charge distribution for the nucleus, is absolutely indispensable for reliable theoretical predictions; (ii) we checked quantitatively that the equivalent photon approximation has a very good accuracy for the discussed processes; and (iii) we present a leading logarithmic calculation of the Coulomb corrections which correspond to multi-photon exchange of the produced mu+/- with the nuclei. These corrections are found to be small (on the percent level). Our result justifies using the Born approximation for numerical simulations of the discussed process at the RHIC and LHC colliders. Finally, we calculate the total cross section for muon pair production at RHIC and LHC., Comment: 9 pages, LaTeX more...

In the colliders, the macroscopically large impact parameters give a substantial contribution to the standard cross section of the $e^+ e^- \to e^+ e^- \gamma$ process. These impact parameters may be much larger than the transverse sizes of the colliding bunches. It means that the standard cross section of this process has to be substantially modified. In the present paper such a beam-size effect is calculated for bremsstrahlung at Super$B$ factory developed in Italy. We find out that this effect reduces beam losses due to bremsstrahlung by about 40%., Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures more...

Usually, the emission of low-energy photons in electron-positron (or electron-ion) bunch collisions is calculated with the same approach as for synchrotron radiation (beamstrahlung). However, for soft photons (E_gamma < E_c where E_c is a critical photon energy), when the coherence length of the radiation becomes comparable to the bunch length, the beamstrahlung approximation becomes invalid. In this paper, we present results of our calculation for this region based on approximation of classical currents. We consider several colliders with dense bunches. The number of low-energy photons dN_gamma emitted by N_e electrons per bunch crossing in the energy interval dE_gamma is dN_gamma = alpha g N_e dE_gamma/E_gamma, where alpha is the fine-structure constant, and the function g, which depends on the bunch parameters, typically is of order unity for modern colliders. In particular, for the ILC, we find that E_c = 83 keV and g=5.5 at a vanishing beam axis displacement, and g=0.88, E_c=0.24 keV for KEKB. We also calculate the specific dependence of dN_gamma on the impact parameter between the two beam axes. In principle, the latter aspect allows for online monitoring of the beam axis displacement., Comment: 10 pages, RevTex more...

Unitarity corrections to several electromagnetic processes in collisions of relativistic heavy nuclei are considered. They are due to the unitarity requirement for the S-matrix and correspond to the exchange of light-by-light scattering block between colliding nuclei. We obtain improved results for the corrections to e+e- and mu+mu- pair production, as well as new results for unitarity corrections to the production of photons via virtual Compton and virtual Delbruck scattering. These corrections can be numerically large; e.g., the mu+mu- pair production cross section is reduced by about 50% and the nuclear bremsstrahlung by about 15 to 20%., Comment: 9 pages; LaTeX more...

Delbrueck scattering is an elastic scattering of a photon in the Coulomb field of a nucleus via a virtual electron loop. The contribution of this virtual subprocess to the emission of a photon in the collision of ultra-relativistic nuclei Z_1 Z_2 -> Z_1 Z_2 gamma is considered. We identify the incoming virtual photon as being generated by one of the relativistic nuclei involved in the binary collision and the scattered photon as being emitted in the process. The energy and angular distributions of the photons are calculated. The discussed process has no infrared divergence. The total cross section obtained is 14 barn for Au-Au collisions at the RHIC collider and 50 barn for Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC collider. These cross sections are considerably larger than those for ordinary tree-level nuclear bremsstrahlung in the considered photon energy range m_e << E_\gamma << m_e gamma, where gamma is the Lorentz factor of the nucleus. Finally, photon emission in electron-nucleus collisions e Z -> e Z gamma is discussed in the context of the eRHIC option., Comment: 10 pages; 7 figures more...

The exclusive production of one $\mu^+\mu^-$ pair in collisions of two ultra-relativistic nuclei is considered. We present the simple method for calculation of the Born cross section for this process. Then we found that the Coulomb corrections to this cross section (which correspond to multi-photon exchange of the produced $\mu^{\pm}$ with nuclei) are small while the unitarity corrections are large. This is in sharp contrast to the exclusive $e^+e^-$ pair production where the Coulomb corrections to the Born cross section are large while the unitarity corrections are small. We calculated also the cross section for the production of one $\mu^+\mu^-$ pair and several $e^+e^-$ pairs in the leading logarithmic approximation. Using this cross section we found that the inclusive production of $\mu^+\mu^-$ pair coincides in this approximation with its Born value., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, Report presented by V.G. Serbo at the International Conference ``The PHOTON: its first hundred years and the future'' (30.08 -- 08.09.2005, Warsaw and Kazimierz, Poland) more...

We consider emission of a photon by an electron in the field of a strong laser wave. A probability of this process for circularly or linearly polarized laser photons and for arbitrary polarization of all other particles is calculated. We obtain the complete set of functions which describe such a probability in a compact invariant form. Besides, we discuss in some detail the polarization effects in the kinematics relevant to the problem of electron to photon conversion at photon-photon and electron-photon colliders., Comment: 8 pages, Contribution to the proceedings of the XVIIIth International Workshop on High Energy Physics and Quantum Field Theory, Saint-Petersburg, June 17-23, 2004 more...

We consider production of a e^+e^- pair by a high-energy photon in the field of a strong laser wave. A probability of this process for circularly or linearly polarized laser photons and for arbitrary polarization of all other particles is calculated. We obtain the complete set of functions which describe such a probability in a compact invariant form. Besides, we discuss in some detail the polarization effects in the kinematics relevant to the problem of electron-photon conversion at photon-photon and electron-photon colliders., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures more...

We consider emission of a photon by an electron in the field of a strong laser wave. Polarization effects in this process are important for a number of physical problems. A probability of this process for circularly or linearly polarized laser photons and for arbitrary polarization of all other particles is calculated. We obtain the complete set of functions which describe such a probability in a compact invariant form. Besides, we discuss in some detail the polarization effects in the kinematics relevant to the problem of electron to photon conversion at photon-photon and photon-electron colliders., Comment: 18 pages, minor changes, published version more...

We consider emission of a photon by an electron in the field of a strong laser wave. Polarization effects in this process are important for a number of physical problems. We discuss a probability of this process for linearly polarized laser photons and for arbitrary polarization of all other particles. We obtain the complete set of functions which describe such a probability in a compact form., Comment: latex, 9 pages, Sect. 4 and Ref.[9] are added, misprints in Eq.(20) and Ref.[1] are removed more...

We consider emission of a photon by an electron in the field of a strong laser wave. Polarization effects in this process are important for a number of physical problems. We discuss a probability of this process for circularly polarized laser photons and for arbitrary polarization of all other particles. We obtain the complete set of functions which describe such a probability in a compact covariant form. Besides, we discuss an application of the obtained formulas to the problem of electron -> photon conversion at photon-photon and photon-electron colliders., Comment: 14 pages, latex more...

For several processes at colliding beams, macroscopically large impact parameters give an essential contribution to the standard cross section. These impact parameters may be much larger than the transverse sizes of the colliding bunches. In that case, the standard calculations have to be essentially modify. The corresponding formulae for such a beam-size effect were given twenty years ago without taking into account correlations of particle coordinates in the beams. In the present paper we derive formulae which necessary to take into account quantitatively the effect of particle correlations in the spectrum of bremsstrahlung as well as in pair production. Besides, we consider critically recent papers of Baier and Katkov [Phys. Rev. D {\bf 66}, 053009 (2002) and hep-ph/0305304] in which it was calculated a new additional ``subtraction term'' related to the coherent contribution into beam-size effect. We show that this result is groundless and point out the origin of the mistake., Comment: 19 LaTeX pages, 3 eps Figs more...

We consider inelastic QED processes, the cross sections of which do not drop with increasing energy. Such reactions have the form of two-jet processes with the exchange of a virtual photon in the t-channel. We consider them in the region of small scattering angles m/E <= theta << 1, which yield the dominant contribution to their cross sections. A new effective method is presented to calculate the corresponding helicity amplitudes. Its basic idea consists in replacing spinor structures for real and weakly virtual intermediate leptons by simple transition vertices for real leptons. The obtained compact amplitudes are particularly suitable for numerical calculations in jet-like kinematics., Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, Contribution presented by V.G. Serbo at PHOTON 2003, Frascati, Italy more...

As continuation of our previous paper we further develop our new method for calculating helicity amplitudes of jet-like QED processes described by tree diagrams, applying it to lepton pair production. This method consists in replacing spinor structures for real and weakly virtual intermediate leptons by simple transition vertices. New vertices are introduced for the pair production case, and previous bremsstrahlung vertices are generalized to include virtual photons inside the considered jet. We present a diagrammatic approach that allows to write down in an efficient way the leading helicity amplitudes, at tree level. The obtained compact amplitudes are particularly suitable for numerical calculations in jet-like kinematics. Several examples with up to four particles in a jet are discussed in detail., Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, Latex, Springer-Latex macros included more...

Methods of gamma-gamma, gamma-electron luminosities measurement at photon colliders based on Compton scattering of laser photons on high energy electrons at linear colliders are considered., Comment: 9 pages, Latex, 7 figures (.eps), talk at Talk at the Intern. Workshop on Physics and Detectors at Linear Collider, LCWS2002, August 26-30, 2002, Jeju Island, Korea. In v.3 missed term was added in Eq.9 more...

For the $e^+ e^- \to e^+ e^- \gamma$ process at colliding beams, macroscopically large impact parameters give an essential contribution to the standard cross section. These impact parameters may be much larger than the transverse sizes of the colliding bunches. It means that the standard calculations have to be essentially modify. In the present paper such a beam-size or MD-effect is calculated for bremsstrahlung at B-factories PEP-II and KEKB using the list of nominal parameters from Review of Particle Physics (2002). We find out that this effect reduces beam losses due to bremsstrahlung by about 20%., Comment: 10 Latex pages more...

For several processes at colliding beams, macroscopically large impact parameters give an essential contribution to the standard cross section. These impact parameters may be much larger than the transverse sizes of the colliding bunches. In that case, the standard calculations have to be essentially modify. The corresponding formulae were given twenty years ago. In recent paper of Baier and Katkov [17] it was claimed that the previous results about bremsstrahlung spectrum have to be revised and an additional subtraction related to the coherent contribution has to be done. This additional term has been calculated with the result that it may be essential for the performed and future experiments. In the present paper we analyze in detail the coherent and incoherent contributions in the conditions, considered in paper [17]. In contract to above claims, we found out that under these conditions the coherent contribution is completely negligible and, therefore, there is no need to revise the previous results., Comment: 16 Latex page more...

In a number of papers an attractive method of laser polarization of electrons (positrons) at storage rings or linear colliders has been proposed. We show that these suggestions are incorrect and based on errors in simulation of multiple Compton scattering and in calculation of the Compton spin-flip cross sections. We argue that the equilibrium polarization in this method is zero., Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, talk at 9-th Intern. Workshop on Linear Colliders (LC02), Feb. 4-8, 2002, SLAC, Stanford, USA more...

Inelastic QED processes, the cross sections of which do not drop with increasing energy, play an important role at high-energy colliders. Such reactions have the form of two-jet processes with the exchange of a virtual photon in the t-channel. We consider them in the region of small scattering angles $m/E \lesssim \theta \ll 1$, which yields the dominant contribution to their total cross sections. A new effective method is presented and applied to QED processes with emission of real photons to calculate the helicity amplitudes of these processes. Its basic idea is similar to the well-known equivalent-lepton method. Compact analytical expressions for those amplitudes up to $e^8$ are derived omitting only terms of the order of $m^2/E^2, \theta^2$, $\theta m/E$ and higher order. The helicity amplitudes are presented in a compact form in which large compensating terms are already cancelled. Some common properties for all jet-like processes are found and we discuss their origin., Comment: 17 pages, LATEX (svjour style files included) more...

We analyze the structure of the Coulomb and unitarity corrections to the single pair production as well as the cross section for the multiple pair production. In the external field approximation we consider the probability of $e^+e^-$ pair production at fixed impact parameter $\rho$ between colliding ultra-relativistic heavy nuclei. We obtain the analytical result for this probability at large $\rho$ as compared to the electron Compton wavelength. We estimate also the unitary corrections to the total cross section of the process., Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX, references corrected more...

The study of the charge asymmetry of produced particles allows to investigate the interference of different production mechanisms and to determine new features of the corresponding amplitudes. In the process $e^- e^+ \to e^- e^+ \pi^+ \pi^-$ the two-pion system is produced via two mechanisms: two-photon (C-even state) and bremsstrahlung (C-odd state) production. We study the charge asymmetry of pions in a differential in the pion momenta cross section originating from an interference between these two mechanisms. At low effective mass of dipions this asymmetry is directly related to the s- and p-phases of elastic $\pi\pi$ scattering. At higher energies it can give new information about the $f_0$ meson family, $f_2(1270)$ meson, etc. The asymmetry is expressed via the pion form factor $F_\pi$ and helicity amplitudes $M_{ab}$ for the subprocess $\gamma^*\gamma\to \pi^+\pi^-$ as $\sum G_{ab}{\rm Re}(F_\pi^*M_{ab})$ where we have calculated analytically the coefficients $G_{ab}$ for the region giving the main contribution to the effect. Several distributions of pions are presented performing a numerical analysis in a model with point-like pions. In the region near the dipion threshold the asymmetry is of the order of 1%. We show that with suitable cuts the signal to background ratio can be increased up to about 10%., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, LaTeX, style files for EPJC included more...

This paper deals with the production of orthodimuonium (OM) ($\mu^{+} \mu^{-}$ atom in triplet state) in collisions of high-energy electrons with nuclei or atoms. This reaction was previously studied by Holvik and Olsen [Phys. Rev. D 35, 2124 (1987)] on the basis of a bremsstrahlung mechanism where OM is produced by only one virtual photon. In the present paper we consider a competing three-photon mechanism where the production of OM results from the collision of a photon generated by the electron with two photons emitted by the nucleus. We derive the corresponding spectrum and production rate of OM and show that the three-photon mechanism is the dominant one for heavy atom target., Comment: Revtex style, 10 pages, 5 postscript figures more...

We consider the ortho-- and parapositronium production in the process $AA \to AA+$ Ps where A is a nucleus with the charge number Z. The inclusive cross section and the energy distribution of the relativistic Ps are calculated which are of primary interest from the experimental point of view. The accuracy of the corresponding cross sections is given by omitting terms $\sim (Z\alpha )^2/L^2$ for the para--Ps and $\sim (Z\alpha)^2/L$ for the ortho--Ps production where $L=\ln{\gamma^2} \approx 9$ and 16 for the RHIC and the LHC. Within this accuracy the multiphoton (Coulomb) corrections are taken into account. We show that the RHIC and the LHC will be Ps factories with a productions rate of about $10^5 \div 10^8$ relativistic Ps per day. The fraction of the ortho--Ps is expected to be of the same order as that of the para--Ps for Au--Au and Pb--Pb collisions., Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, RevTeX, misprint corrected more...

We consider the Coulomb correction (CC) to the $e^+e^-$ pair production related to multiphoton exchange of the produced $e^{\pm}$ with nuclei. The contribution of CC to the energy distribution of $e^+$ and $e^-$ as well as to the total pair production cross section are calculated with an accuracy of the order of 1%. The found correction to the total Born cross section is negative and equal to -25% at the RHIC for Au--Au and -14% at the LHC for Pb--Pb collisions., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, REVTEX, some changes in presentation, discussion on structure of amplitude added, references updated more...

In recent works [Segev,Wells; Baltz, McLerran; Eichmann, Reinhardt, Schramm, Greiner] it was claimed that the Coulomb correction to the $e^+e^-$ production cross section in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is absent. We point out that this statement is in obvious contradiction to some well known results. We obtain large Coulomb corrections in the pair production cross section for the RHIC and LHC heavy-ion colliders., Comment: 3 pages, Latex more...

The $e^+e^-$ pair production in collisions of muon with atoms is considered to all orders in the parameter $Z\alpha$. We obtain energy distribution of $e^+$ and $e^-$ as well as energy loss of muon passing through matter with heavy atoms. The found corrections to the Born contribution do not depend on the details of the target properties except of a simple factor. For the considered example of Pb target the muon energy loss corrections vary from -65 % to -10 % depending on the pair energy., Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, LaTex; Introduction slightly enlarged, 2 references added more...

Coherent bremsstrahlung (CBS) is a sopecific type of radiation at colliders with short bunches. In the present paper we calculate the main characteristic of CBS for the BEPC collider. At this collider $d N_\gamma \sim 3\cdot 10^8 dE_\gamma /E_\gamma $ photons of CBS will be emitted for a single collision of the beams in the energy range $E_\gamma$ smaller than 240 eV. It seems that CBS can be a potential tool for optimazing collisions and for measuring beam parameters. Indeed, the bunch length $\sigma_z$ can be found from the CBS spectrum because critical energy $E_c \propto 1/\sigma_z$; the horizontal transverse bunch size $\sigma_x $ is related to $dN_\gamma \propto 1/\sigma_x^2$. Besides, CBS may be very useful for a fast control over an impact parameter $R$ between the colliding bunch axex because a dependence of $dN_\gamma $ on $R$ has a very specific behavior. It seems quite interesting to investigate this type of radiation on the BEPC collider (for example, in the range of a visible light with the rate about $3 \cdot 10^{14} $ photons per second) and apply it for the fast beam control., Comment: 10 pages with 4 figures, LaTex more...

Dimuonium (the bound system of two muons, $\mu^+\mu^-$-atom) has not been observed yet. In this paper we discuss the electromagnetic production of dimuonium at RHIC and LHC in relativistic heavy ion collisions. The production of parastates is analyzed in the equivalent photon approximation. For the treatment of orthostates, we develop a three photon formalism. We determine the production rates at RHIC and LHC with an accuracy of a few percent and discuss problems related to the observation of dimuonium., Comment: 20 pages, RevTex, 7 figures more...

We consider the production of ultrarelativistic positronium (Ps) in $\gamma A \to Ps + A$ and $e A \to Ps + e A$ processes where $A$ is an atom or a nucleus with charge $Ze$. For the photoproduction of para- and ortho-Ps and the electroproduction of para-Ps we obtain the most complete description compared with previous works. It includes high order $Z \alpha$ corrections and polarization effects. The accuracy of the obtained cross sections is determined by omitted terms of the order of the inverse Ps Lorentz factor squared. The studied high order multi-photon electroproduction of ortho-Ps dominates for the collision of electrons with heavy atoms over the bremsstrahlung production from the electron via a virtual photon proposed by Holvik and Olsen. Our results complete and correct the studies of those authors., Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, RevTex; v2: minor corrections for the accuracy of the results, a discussion of the literature added in a footnote, one additional reference; v3: diagram of Fig.2 corrected more...

The lepton pair production $e^- e^+ \to e^- e^+ l^- l^+ $ or $\mu^- \mu^+ \to \mu^- \mu^+ l^- l^+ $ is studied in the dominant cross section region of scattering angles ${m_j}/{E_j} \stackrel{<}{\sim} \theta_j \ll 1 $. An analytical expression is found for all 64 helicity amplitudes of these processes. The accuracy of the obtained formulae is given omitting only terms of the order of ${m_j^2}/{E_j^2}$, $\theta_j^2$ and $ \theta_j {m_j}/{E_j}$. The result has a compact form convenient both for analytical and numerical calculations of various cross sections in this dominating scattering regime., Comment: 19 pages, Latex more...

When polarized electrons traverse a region where the laser light is focused their polarization varies even if their energy and direction of motion are not changed. This effect is due to interference of the incoming electron wave and an electron wave scattered at zero angle. Equations are obtained which determine the variation of the electron density matrix, and their solutions are given. The change in the electron polarization depends not only on the Compton cross section but on the real part of the forward Compton amplitude as well. It should be taken into account, for example, in simulations of the $e \to \gamma$ conversion for future $\gamma \gamma$ colliders., Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX , 2 postscript figures included more...

The elastic light-light scattering below the threshold of the $e^+e^-$ pair production leads to a variation in polarization of hard $\gamma$-quanta traversing without loss a region where the laser light is focused. Equations are obtained which determine the variation of Stokes parameters of $\gamma$-quanta in this case, and their solutions are given. It is pointed out that this effect can be observed in the experiment E-144 at SLAC. It should be taken into account (and, perhaps, it can be used) in experiments at future $\gamma \gamma$ colliders., Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, 2 PS figures more...

We present qualitative but precise description of the linear beam-size effect predicted for the processes in which unstable but long--living particles collide with each other. We derive physically pronounced equation for the events rate which proves that the linear beam-size effect corresponds to the scattering of one beam of particles on the decay products of the other. We compare this linear beam-size effect with the known logarithmic beam-size effect measured in the experiments on a single bremsstrahlung at VEPP-4 and HERA., Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure more...

The radiation caused by particles of one bunch in the collective electromagnetic field of the short oncoming bunch is studied. Quantum effects are calculated for the spectrum of radiated photons. Using this spectrum, the dependence of the relative energy loss delta on a quantum parameter kappa is dicussed. It is shown that the behaviour of delta changes considerably with the increase of that parameter. In the classical regime (kappa << 1) the energy loss is proportional to the incoming particle energy, while in the extreme quantum regime (kappa >> 1) the energy loss becomes a constant. The coherent e+e- pair production for gamma-e colliders as cross-channel to CBS is considered., Comment: 14 pages + 6 figures, Latex with epsfig more...