Revisiting unitarity corrections for electromagnetic processes in collisions of relativistic nuclei

AbstractUnitarity corrections to several electromagnetic processes in collisions of relativistic heavy nuclei are considered. They are due to the unitarity requirement for the S-matrix and correspond to the exchange of a light-by-light scattering block between colliding nuclei. We obtain improved results for the corrections to e+ e− and μ+μ− pair production as well as new results for unitarity corrections to the production of photons via virtual Compton and virtual Delbrück scattering. These corrections can be numerically large; e.g., the μ+μ− pair production cross section is reduced by about 50% and nuclear bremsstrahlung by about 15÷20%.