High Energy Photon-Photon Collisions -

Abstract

The collisions of high energy photons produced at an electron-positron collider provide a comprehensive laboratory for testing QCD, electroweak interactions, and extensions of the Standard Model. The luminosity and energy of the colliding photons produced by back-scattering laser beams is expected to be comparable to that of the primary $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collisions. In this overview, we shall focus on tests of electroweak theory in photon-photon annihilation, particularly $\gamma \gamma \to W^{+}{W}^{-}$, $\gamma \gamma \to$ Higgs bosons, and higher-order loop processes, such as $\gamma \gamma \to \gamma \gamma ,Z\gamma$ and $ZZ.$ Since each photon can be resolved into a $W^{+}{W}^{-}$ pair, high energy photon-photon collisions can also provide a remarkably background-free laboratory for studying $WW$ collisions and annihilation. We also review high energy $\gamma \gamma$ tests of quantum chromodynamics, such as the scaling of the photon structure function, $t\bar{t}$ production, mini-jet processes, and diffractive reactions.

Comments: uses PHYZZX, 52 pages, 30 figures (available upon request), SLAC-PUB-6571