Laser-assisted Mott scattering in the Coulomb approximation

Abstract

We investigate the influence of the Coulomb interaction on laser-assisted Mott scattering. This is done by using an approximation in which the initial state of the electron is described by a Coulomb function modulated by the laser in the same way as a relativistic Volkov state. Numerical calculations are carried out for medium field intensity, and compared with the corresponding results obtained within the first-order Born approximation (where Coulomb distortion effects are neglected). It is found that the differential cross sections of the present treatment agree well with the Born predictions at small angles. With increasing scattering angles, however, including the Coulomb interaction enhances the cross section, as compared to the first-Born results. Furthermore, we show that the Coulomb distortion of the electron motion leads to a qualitatively different dependence of the cross sections on the laser frequency at high frequencies. The dependences of the differential cross section on the other field parameters, impact energy and the charge state of the residual ion are also studied.

Caustic structures in x-ray Compton scattering off electrons driven by a short intense laser pulse

“…High-intensity lasers can also be employed in laser-assisted scattering processes [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32], where the presence of the strong low-frequency laser field modulates a hard QED scattering process. This could be, for instance, Compton scattering where a hard x-ray (or γ-ray) photon is scattered off a (quasi-)free electron with a frequency change that depends on the scattering angle [33].…”

Electron Scattering Processes in Non-Monochromatic and Relativistically Intense Laser Fields

“…It is known that in many processes involving the interactions of electrons and ions (photoionization, for instance) the Coulomb potential can play an important role during the evolution of the system. For this reason, Li et al [128] analyzed the Coulomb effect over the free-free transitions in a linearly-polarized monochromatic plane wave of moderate intensity. The authors showed that the electron-ion interaction may increase the resulting cross-section at certain range of scattering angles (see also Ref.…”

Mott scattering of a Klein-Gordon particle in an intense laser field

“…The expression of the transition amplitude in the monochromatic case is obtained by replacing in the integrals a, 0 and 2 (11,12) the vector potential of the laser field by Eq. (16) with (φ) = 1.…”

“…They express the fact that the difference between the energies of the incident and scattered dressed electron can be an arbitrary integer multiple of the laser photon energy. Mott scattering beyond the Born approximation was studied by Li et al [12], using relativistic CoulombVolkov electronic states; they discussed the influence of the Coulomb distortion of the electron motion for moderate laser intensity.…”