Experimental investigation of high-energy photon splitting in atomic fields

Sh Zh Akhmadaliev; G Ya Kezerashvili; S G Klimenko; R N Lee; V M Malyshev; A L Maslennikov; A M Milov; A I Milstein; N Yu Muchnoi; A I Naumenkov; V S Panin; S V Peleganchuk; G E Pospelov; I Ya Protopopov; L V Romanov; A G Shamov; D N Shatilov; E A Simonov; V M Strakhovenko; Yu A Tikhonov

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.061802

Experimental investigation of high-energy photon splitting in atomic fields

Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Aug 5;89(6):061802. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.061802. Epub 2002 Jul 19.

Affiliation

¹ Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia.

PMID: 12190576
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.061802

Abstract

Data analysis of an experiment in which photon splitting in atomic fields was observed is presented. The experiment was performed at the tagged photon beam of the ROKK-1M facility at the VEPP-4M collider. In the energy region of 120-450 MeV, statistics of 1.6x10(9) photons incident on the BGO target was collected. About 400 candidate photon-splitting events were reconstructed. Within the attained experimental accuracy, the experimental results are consistent with the calculated exact atomic-field cross section. The predictions obtained in the Born approximation differ significantly from the experimental results.