Hadron production in gamma-gamma collisions as a background for e+e- linear colliders

Drees and Godbole have proposed that, at the interaction point of an e+e- linear collider, one expects a high rate of hadron production by gamma-gamma collisions, providing an additional background to studies in e+e- annihilation. Using a simplified model of the gamma-gamma cross section with soft and jet-like components, we estimate the expected rate of these hadronic events for a variety of realistic machine designs. The final background rates are quite small, and they become smaller still when viewed with a realistic detector simulation.