Bound–Free and Free–Free Pair Production Channels in Forward Delbrück Scattering

Abstract

We present a theoretical study of forward-angle Delbrück scattering of light by the Coulomb field of a target nucleus. Special attention is paid to the Coulomb corrections, which take into account the interaction of the emerging virtual electron–positron pairs with the nucleus to higher orders of αZ. We compare the results from three different computation methods: the direct all-order evaluation of the Delbrück amplitude, the computation from the pair production cross section with the optical theorem and the low-energy limit. We find that the values obtained from the optical theorem are in very good agreement with the all-order calculations and can be used as benchmark data. Moreover, both methods agree with the low-energy limit for photon energies ωmec2 when correctly accounting for the bound–free pair production cross section in the optical theorem calculations, and the discrepancy found in the literature originates from neglecting this contribution.

Keywords

• quantum electrodynamics
• elastic scattering
• pair production
• optical theorem