Photon Fission in Intense Laser Fields and in the Coulomb Field of a Nucleus

Abstract

A calculation of the photon fission cross section in the Coulomb field of a nucleus reveals that the real part of the transition amplitude is the predominant contributor for photon energies up to 2 MeV. Since it is just this part that is associated with the fourth-order vacuum polarization process, it is suggested, given the present developmental state of laser technology, that coincidence experiments with photon fission might well afford a test of higher order quantum electrodynamics.