PHYSICAL REVIEW D, cilt.82, sa.7, 2010 (SCI-Expanded)
We show by experiment that an electron impinging on an electric field that is of critical magnitude in its rest frame, may produce an electron-positron pair. Our measurements address higher-order QED, using the strong electric fields obtainable along particular crystallographic directions in single crystals. For the amorphous material our data are in good agreement with theory, whereas a discrepancy with theory on the magnitude of the trident enhancement is found in the precisely aligned case where the strong electric field acts.