Elastic electron-proton scattering in the presence of a circularly polarized laser field

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a strong circularly polarized laser field influences electron-proton scattering, revealing significant effects on the differential cross section and highlighting the importance of considering proton dressing at high laser intensities.

Contribution

The study derives analytical expressions for the differential cross section in laser-assisted electron-proton scattering, including the relativistic dressing of both particles, which was not fully explored before.

Findings

Laser fields significantly reduce the differential cross section.

Proton dressing effects become notable at laser strengths ≥ 10^{10} V/cm.

The results differ from laser-free and Mott scattering cases.

Abstract

Owing to recent advances in laser technology, it has become important to investigate fundamental laser-assisted processes in very powerful laser fields. In the present work and within the framework of laser-assisted quantum electrodynamics (QED), electron-proton scattering was considered in the presence of a strong electromagnetic field of circular polarization. First, we present a study of the process where we only take into account the relativistic dressing of the electron without the proton. Then, in order to explore the effect of the proton dressing, we fully consider the relativistic dressing of the electron and the proton together and describe them by using Dirac-Volkov functions. The analytical expression for the differential cross section (DCS) in both cases is derived at lowest-order of perturbation theory. As a result, the DCS is notably reduced by the laser field. It is found that the effect of proton dressing begins to appear at laser field strengths greater than or equal to $10^{10}~\text{V/cm}$ and it therefore must be taken into account. The influence of the laser field strength and frequency on the DCS is reported. A comparison with the Mott scattering and the laser-free results is also included.