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Abstract:
Helicity transfer in electron-positron pair production by a relativistic proton colliding with an intense laser beam of circular polarization is studied. The pairs are produced nonlinearly via absorption of few laser photons. Our approach relies on the laser-dressed description of the leptons by relativistic Volkov states and the spin-projection formalism. We calculate spin-resolved production rates, differential in the energy and emission angle of one of the created leptons. The degree of longitudinal polarization is shown to depend on the number of laser photons involved, even when the total energy and momentum absorbed from the laser field is kept constant.
