Compton Process in Intense Short Laser Pulses

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.