Radiative polarization of electrons in a strong laser wave

Abstract

We reanalyze the problem of radiative polarization of electrons brought into collision with a circularly polarized strong plane wave. We present an independent analytical verification of formulae for the cross section given by D.\,Yu. Ivanov et al [Eur.\ Phys.\ J. C \textbf{36}, 127 (2004)]. By choosing the exact electron's helicity as the spin quantum number we show that the self-polarization effect exists only for the moderately relativistic electrons with energy $\gamma =E/m{c}^2\lesssim 10$ and only for a non-head-on collision geometry. In these conditions polarization degree may achieve the values up to 65%, but the effective polarization time is found to be larger than 1\,s even for a high power optical or infrared laser with intensity parameter $\xi =|\mathbf{E}|m{c}^2/E_c\hslash \omega \sim 0.1$ ($E_c=m^2{c}^3/e\hslash$). This makes such a polarization practically unrealizable. We also compare these results with the ones of some papers where the high degree of polarization was predicted for ultrarelativistic case. We argue that this apparent contradiction arises due to the different choice of the spin quantum numbers. In particular, the quantum numbers which provide the high polarization degree represent neither helicity nor transverse polarization, that makes the use of them inconvenient in practice.

minor changes compared to v3; to appear in PRA

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• Spin correlations in nonperturbative electron-positron pair creation by petawatt laser pulses colliding with a TeV proton beam
• Polarization of the electron and positron produced in combined Coulomb and strong laser fields
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Cited by in corpus (20)

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• Polarized positron beams via intense two-color laser pulses
• Theory of Radiative Electron Polarization in Strong Laser Fields
• Ultrarelativistic polarized positron jets via collision of electron and ultraintense laser beams
• Twisted electron in a strong laser wave
• Spin-polarization effects of an ultrarelativistic electron beam in an ultraintense two-color laser pulse
• High-energy gamma-photon polarization in nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production and gamma-polarimetry
• Single-shot determination of spin-polarization for ultrarelativistic electron beams via nonlinear Compton scattering
• Helicity transfer in strong laser fields via the electron anomalous magnetic moment
• Collapse-and-revival dynamics of strongly laser-driven electrons
• Resummation of quantum radiation reaction and induced polarization
• Above-threshold ionization with highly charged ions in super-strong laser fields: III. Spin effects and its dependence on laser polarization
• Spin in Compton scattering with pronounced polarization dynamics
• Laser-driven lepton polarization in the quantum radiation-dominated reflection regime
• Generation of polarized positron beams via collisions of ultrarelativistic electron beams
• Beam focus and longitudinal polarization influence on spin dynamics in the Kapitza-Dirac effect
• Properties of electrons scattered on a strong plane electromagnetic wave with a linear polarization: classical treatment
• Justification of the single-mode approximation for a finite-duration laser pulse interacting with an electron
• Parameter space investigation for spin-dependent electron diffraction in the Kapitza-Dirac effect
• Two-dimensional simulation of the spin-flip in the Kapitza-Dirac effect