Electron-atom scattering in a circularly polarized laser field

Abstract

We consider electron-atom scattering in a circularly polarized laser field at sufficiently high electron energies, permitting to describe the scattering process by the first order Born approximation. Assuming the radiation field has sufficiently moderate intensities, the laser-dressing of the hydrogen target atom in its ground state will be treated in second order perturbation theory. Within this approximation scheme, it is shown that the nonlinear differential cross sections of free-free transitions do neither depend on the {\it dynamical phase} $\phi$ of the radiative process nor on the {\it helicity} of the circularly polarized laser light. Relations to the corresponding results for linear laser polarization are established.