Abstract

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 Pb82+ 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.

Department(s)

Physics

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1434-6044

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2012 Springer New York LLC, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Mar 2012

Included in

Physics Commons

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