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  • Open Access

Nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process driven by intense squeezed light

Xin Ge1,*, Kai-Hong Zhuang1,*, Pei-Lun He2,†, and Yue-Yue Chen1,‡

  • 1Department of Physics, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai 200234, China
  • 2State Key Laboratory of Dark Matter Physics, Key Laboratory for Laser Plasmas (Ministry of Education) and School of Physics and Astronomy, Collaborative Innovation Center for IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

  • *These authors contributed equally to this work.
  • †Contact author: peilunhe@sjtu.edu.cn
  • ‡Contact author: yueyuechen@shnu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 016012 – Published 10 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/n1xm-66mq

Abstract

The nonlinear Breit-Wheeler process is a fundamental phenomenon of strong-field quantum electrodynamics and is usually studied for classically prescribed laser backgrounds. Here we examine how the statistical properties of a squeezed coherent driving field modify nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production. Using a polarization-resolved Monte Carlo framework with stochastic averaging over the field-amplitude distribution derived from the Husimi Q-function, we simulate collisions of γ photons with squeezed light and identify clear source-state-dependent modifications of the pair production signal. These effects include the smoothing of harmonic structure, the enhancement of higher-order multiphoton channels, and the suppression of the single-laser-photon absorption channel when stronger-field realizations raise the dressed-mass threshold. Within the selected spectral window, the degree of positron polarization increases monotonically with the squeezing parameter, while the angular distributions broaden as the statistical weight of larger field amplitudes increases. Our results show that, even at fixed mean electric-field amplitude, the statistical fluctuations inherent to the squeezed coherent state can substantially reshape spectral, angular, and spin-resolved observables in strong-field pair production. These findings illustrate a direct link between source-state-dependent field statistics and strong-field pair production observables, and provide a theoretical framework for studying how squeezed-state preparation of the driving field can influence high-energy quantum electrodynamics processes.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 016012– Published 10 July, 2026
  • Received 15 March 2026
  • Accepted 21 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

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