Coulomb corrections in the calculation of ultrarelativistic heavy ion production of continuum e+ e- pairs

Abstract

Coulomb corrections to perturbation theory for producing electron-positron pairs in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions are considered in a part-analytical, part-numerical approach. Production probabilities are reduced from perturbation theory with increasing charge of the colliding heavy ions, as has been previously argued in the literature. It is shown here that the reduction from perturbation theory comes from the appropriate physical spatial cutoff of the electromagnetic potentials arising from the colliding ultrarelativistic heavy ions.