Photoproduction of Muon Pairs

The virtual Compton corrections to muon pair production are analyzed and compared with the Bethe-Heitler cross section for symmetric pairs. The three corrections studied are the peripheral, diffraction, and "compound state" processes. It is shown that the peripheral processes will be the first to give significant corrections as the photon energy and muon detection angle are increased in future experiments. It is predicted that $\mu$-pair experiments should be interpretable as pure Bethe-Heitler processes (and therefore valid tests of quantum electrodynamics) up to photon energies of 10 BeV and muon angles of 18° in the lab system.