Bound-free e⁺e⁻ pair creation with a linearly polarized laser field and a nuclear field

The process of bound-free pair production of electrons and positrons in combined laser and Coulomb fields is investigated. It is assumed that an ion collides at relativistic speed with an intense x-ray laser beam of linear polarization. The process proceeds nonlinearly due to simultaneous absorption of a few laser photons. The capture of the electron into the ground state and the L shell is considered. The scaling of the total rate, the angular distributions of the emitted positrons, and a comparison to the competing free-free channel are surveyed. Numerical results of pair production rates for parameters for the planned x-ray free-electron lasers at DESY and SLAC are presented. We find that pair production with these laser facilities can become observable in the near future.