Non-linear Compton effect with a

laser pulse

Madalina Boca and Viorica Florescu

Centre for Advanced Quantum Physics, University of Bucharest
Contents

● Introduction
● Theory
● The case of a laser pulse
● The monochromatic limit
● Numerical example
Introduction

Electron in strong electromagnetic fields

● Rapidly changing conditions for experimental work

● Powerful lasers: performances in intensity, frequency
range, pulse duration (based on different principles)
● Very energetic electron beams
● Detection techniques

A recent review of theoretical and experimental advances:

Y. I. Salamin et al, Physics Reports 427, Relativistic high power
laser matter interaction (2006)
●
Strong electromagnetic fields for atomic physics

INTENSE LASERS

Term of comparison: the electric field created by a proton at

the Bohr radius E= 5 109 V/cm = 1 au, I=3.5 1016 W/cm2
Interest (for theory !) : going beyond perturbation theory
(PT) in non-relativistic quantum mechanics

HIGH INTENSITY

The electron approaches the velocity of light - relativistic

regime I= 1018W/cm2 at  ~ 1 eV: Use of relativistic quantum
mechanics
 ULTRA INTENSE
Ec - the QED critical electric field has the value needed for
pair creation due to vacuum polarization by a static field. It is
defined by the condition
eEcC=mc2, Ec=1.33 1016 V/cm I=4.6 1029W/cm2 QED in
external field

•Available : strongest optical ( =1eV, I=1022W/cm2 E=10-4 Ec)

•Projects:
•ELI: I=1022W/cm2, E=10-2 Ec
•XFEL( DESY, SLAC) =8-12 KeV, I=1015W/cm2 ,E=10-7 Ec

•Available :high energetic electrons (tens of GeV – interestig

for this area)
Non-linear Compton effect: A (bound or free) electron in a
laser field absorbs a number of laser photons and emits a
single one of frequency which can be much larger than the
laser frequency.

k2
k2

q1 q2 = p1 p2

k1 k2 k2 k1

+ p1 p2 p1 p2

+ . . .
Existent theoretical description:
the laser field field is assumed monochromatic.
● Brown and Kibble Phys. Rev. 133, A705 (1964);
Goldman Phys. Lett 8, 103 (1964); Nikishov and Ritus
JETF 46, 1412 (1964): frequency spectrum and
analytic expressions for the cross-sections
concerning the scattered photon attributes
● Lyulka JETF 67, 1638 (1974): expression for the
amplitudes and spectral distribution of photons for
an arbitrary polarization of the laser
● Panek et al, Phys. Rev. A 65, 022712 (2002)
Laser-Compton scattering as a potential bright X-
ray source
● Chouffani K. et al Laser and Particle Beams 24, 411
(2006); the X-rays were generated by colliding a 20-22
MeV, 5-20 ns electron beam with a 100 MW, 7 ns Nd:YAG
laser
● P. Panek, J.Z. Kamiski, F. Ehlotzky, Optics Commun.
213, 121 (2002)

Experimental detection:
● Bula et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 3116 (1996); Phys. Rev. D
60, 0920064 (1999)
 THE EXPERIMENT AT SLAC - the results

i. Nonlinear Compton scattering: 1996 e+N -> e' +'

ii.Positron production in multiphoton light-by-light scattering: 1997
•Breit and Wheeler reaction: '+ -> ee +
Believed to occur in nature (astrophysics)
Laboratory: collision of a laser beam against a high energy
photon beam makes possible the multiphoton Breit-Wheeler reaction '+N
-> ee'
•The trident process: e+N -> e'e + e'

Collision of electrons with laser: apparatus designed to detect electrons

and positrons. The detection of positrons is interpreted as "arising from
a two-step process in which laser photons are backscattered to GeV
energies by the electron beam followed by a collision between the high-
energy photon and several laser photons to produce an electron-positron
pair”
A simulation indicates that the Breit-Wheeler process has been detected
Theory: Semiclassical relativistic description

●The laser field

n 1 – the propagation direction

Oxy – the polarization plane
The emitted photon
●

The Hamiltonian
●

First order perturbation theory with respect to Hi

Initial and final states

●
 |i(x,p)> - Volkov solution

The transition amplitude

●
 The case of a laser pulse

calculated analytically

The remaining integral over  is calculated numerically. The following

calculations are simplified if one chooses a polarization 4-vector s2
orthogonal on both k1 and k2.
The most differential cross section
●

0 = duration of the laser pulse

Jinc = the incident flux

Summation over electrons spins

Summation over final photon polarizations

The most differential cross section – unpolarized particles
●
Integrated cross sections
●

Integrals over k 2 or p 2 can be analytically performed using the

functions

cons :

cons :
The monochromatic limit

BN = generalized Bessel function; reduce to Bessel

functions for circular polarization
The transition amplitude
●

the dressed electron four-momentum

Multiphotonic structure of the differential cross section

●
Discrete spectrum of the emitted radiation
●
 z
Numerical example k1
k2
Unpolarized emitted photons, no spin-flip p1
Circularly polarized laser field O y

p1=50 au, A0=100 au, p1=50 au, A0=200 au, p1=50 au, A0=300 au,
1=1 au 1=0.2 au 1=0.05 au