arXiv · 2301.07089
Impact of QED backgrounds on light-by-light scattering measurements at $e^+e^-$ and $e^-e^-$ colliders
Abstract
The process of elastic scattering of photons ($\gamma\gamma \to \gamma\gamma$, light-by-light scattering) has attracted significant interest in recent years as a loop-induced process sensitive to all charged particles. To date, this process has been studied through Delbr\"{u}ck scattering, photon splitting in the nuclear Coulomb field, and ultra-peripheral heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. Future precision measurements are anticipated at high-luminosity $e^+e^-$ colliders (SuperKEKb, FCC, CEPC, ILC, CLIC), their $e^-e^-$ options, and $\gamma\gamma$ colliders based on the backscattering of laser photons. In this paper, we show that background QED processes severely limit the study of elastic light-by-light scattering at $e^+e^-$ colliders. For the $e^+e^-$ case, the main background arises from $e^+e^-$ annihilation into two photons within the detector acceptance after the initial electron and positron emit hard ISR photons at small angles. Since only two photons with a small total transverse momentum are registered in the detector in both cases, this process effectively mimics the $\gamma\gamma \to \gamma\gamma$ signal with a significantly larger cross section at high invariant masses. Other relevant background QED processes for both types of collisions are also comprehensively analyzed and discussed.
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K. I. Beloborodov, T. A. Kharlamova, V. I. Telnov. 2023-01-17. Impact of QED backgrounds on light-by-light scattering measurements at $e^+e^-$ and $e^-e^-$ colliders. https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.07089
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