On the properties of the Volkov solutions of the Klein-Gordon equation

Abstract

We present an elementary proof based on a direct calculation of the property of completeness at constant time of the solutions of the Klein-Gordon equation for a charged particle in a plane wave electromagnetic field. We also review different forms of the orthogonality and completeness relations previously presented in the literature and we discuss the possibility to construct the Feynman propagator for the particle in a plane-wave laser pulse as an expansion in terms of Volkov solutions. We show that this leads to a rigorous justification for the expression of the transition amplitude, currently used in the literature, for a class of laser assisted or laser induced processes.