Pair production in circularly polarized waves

We study electron-positron pair production within two counterpropagating, circularly polarized electromagnetic fields through the Wigner formalism. We numerically generate high-resolution momentum maps to perform a detailed spectroscopic analysis. We identify signatures of polarization and kinematics of the incident fields in the final positron distribution and, on this basis, provide an intuitive picture of helicity transfer in multiphoton pair production. Published by the American Physical Society 2024