Compton Process in Intense Short Laser Pulses

TL;DR

This paper calculates the spectra of Compton radiation emitted during electron scattering in intense laser fields, comparing finite pulses and pulse trains, and investigates how pulse duration affects angular distributions and asymmetries.

Contribution

It provides a detailed theoretical framework for Compton scattering in intense laser pulses, including finite and train pulse models, and analyzes the impact of pulse duration on emission characteristics.

Findings

Good agreement between finite pulse and pulse train results for long pulses

Pronounced asymmetries in angular distributions for very short pulses

Asymmetries diminish with increasing pulse oscillations

Abstract

The spectra of Compton radiation emitted during electron scattering off an intense laser beam are calculated using the framework of strong-field quantum electrodynamics. We model these intense laser beams as finite length plane-wave-fronted pulses, similar to Neville and Rohrlich [Phys. Rev. D {\bf 3}, 1692 (1971)], or as trains of such pulses. Expressions for energy and angular distributions of Compton photons are derived such that a comparison of both situations becomes meaningful. Comparing frequency distributions for both an isolated laser pulse and a laser pulse train, we find a very good agreement between the results for long pulse durations which breaks down however for ultrashort laser pulses. The dependence of angular distributions of emitted radiation on a pulse duration is also investigated. Pronounced asymmetries of angular distributions are found for very short laser pulses, which gradually disappear with increasing the number of laser field oscillations. Those asymmetries are attributed to asymmetries of the vector potential describing an incident laser beam.