Photo-Emission of a Single-Electron Wave-Packet in a Strong Laser Field

Abstract

The radiation emitted by a single-electron wave packet in an intense laser field is considered. A relation between the exact quantum formulation and its classical counterpart is established via the electron's Wigner function. In particular we show that the wave packet, even when it spreads to the scale of the wavelength of the driving laser field, cannot be treated as an extended classical charge distribution but rather behaves as a point-like emitter carrying information on its initial quantum state. We outline an experimental setup dedicated to put this conclusion to the test.