Complete description of polarization effects in e^+e^- pair production by a photon in the field of a strong laser wave

Abstract

We consider production of a e^+e^- pair by a high-energy photon in the field of a strong laser wave. A probability of this process for circularly or linearly polarized laser photons and for arbitrary polarization of all other particles is calculated. We obtain the complete set of functions which describe such a probability in a compact invariant form. Besides, we discuss in some detail the polarization effects in the kinematics relevant to the problem of electron-photon conversion at photon-photon and electron-photon colliders.