Synchrotron electron-positron pair production by gamma quanta in crystals and its quantitative description

Authors

  • Viktor V. Tikhomirov Institute for Nuclear Problems, Belarusian State University, 11 Babrujskaja Street, Minsk 220006, Belarus

Keywords:

gamma quantum, crystal, electron, positron, high-energy particles, pair production, synchrotron pair production process, modelling, experimental research
Supporting Agencies
The author expresses his gratitude to full professor V. G. Baryshevsky for suggesting this area as a topic of dissertation research and fruitful communication over the course of 45 years.

Abstract

The article is devoted to the description of the method for modelling the process of electron-positron pair production by gamma quanta in crystals and its application to the interpretation of the results of experiments conducted at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. The history of the prediction of the effect of synchrotron pair production in crystals in 1982 is presented, as well as the threshold energy and the characteristic angle of manifestation of this process V0/m, where V0 is the amplitude of the change in the averaged potential of an atomic chain or plane, and m is the electron mass. The relationship between the mechanisms of synchrotron and coherent bremsstrahlung pair production in crystals is discussed which makes it possible to describe the picture of this process up to gamma quanta energies reaching tens of teraelectronvolts. The method for calculating the probability of pair production in crystals is presented in detail, making it possible to take into account the interference of the amplitudes of this process in the fields of different atomic chains and planes, as well as the inhomogeneity of the averaged field of the latter. For the first time, an interpretation of known experiments on the observation of coherent enhancement of the pair production process in germanium and tungsten crystals is given on a unified basis. The use of crystalline absorbers of hard gamma radiation in experiments on the search for deviations from the Standard Model of fundamental interactions in rare decays of the neutral K-mesons is discussed in detail. An example of calculating the dependence of the probability of the pair production process in a tungsten crystal on the azimuthal angle determining the direction of the plane of incidence of gamma quanta on the crystal axis is also given.

Author Biography

  • Viktor V. Tikhomirov, Institute for Nuclear Problems, Belarusian State University, 11 Babrujskaja Street, Minsk 220006, Belarus

    doctor of science (physics and mathematics), full professor; chief researcher at the laboratory of radiation safety

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Published

2026-01-14

Issue

No. 3 (2025): Journal of the Belarusian State University. Physics

Section

Atomic Nucleus and Elementary Particle Physics

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How to Cite

(1)
Tikhomirov, V. V. Synchrotron Electron-Positron Pair Production by Gamma Quanta in Crystals and Its Quantitative Description. Журнал Белорусского государственного университета. Физика 2026, No. 3, 48-61. https://doi.org/10.33581/2520-2243-2025-3-%p.
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