Electrodynamics at the Highest Energies

Abstract

At very high energies, the bremsstrahlung and pair production cross sections exhibit complex behavior due to the material in which the interactions occur. The cross sections in dense media can be dramatically different than for isolated atoms. This writeup discusses these in-medium effects, emphasizing how the cross section has different energy and target density dependencies in different regimes. Data from SLAC experiment E-146 will be presented to confirm the energy and density scaling. Finally, QCD analogs of the electrodynamics effects will be discussed.