Spin effects in strong-field laser-electron interactions

Abstract

The electron spin degree of freedom can play a significant role in relativistic scattering processes involving intense laser fields. In this contribution we discuss the influence of the electron spin on (i) Kapitza-Dirac scattering in an x-ray laser field of high intensity, (ii) photo-induced electron-positron pair production in a strong laser wave and (iii) multiphoton electron-positron pair production on an atomic nucleus. We show that in all cases under consideration the electron spin can have a characteristic impact on the process properties and their total probabilities. To this end, spin-resolved calculations based on the Dirac equation in the presence of an intense laser field are performed. The predictions from Dirac theory are also compared with the corresponding results from the Klein-Gordon equation.

9 pages, 6 figures

References in corpus (7)

• Breit-Wheeler Process in Intense Short Laser Pulses
• Enhanced subthreshold electron-positron production in short laser pulses
• Spin dynamics in the Kapitza-Dirac effect
• Spin correlations in nonperturbative electron-positron pair creation by petawatt laser pulses colliding with a TeV proton beam
• Photo-production of scalar particles in the field of a circularly polarized laser beam
• Polarization of the electron and positron produced in combined Coulomb and strong laser fields
• Quasiclassical approach to high-energy QED processes in strong laser and atomic fields

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Global phase and frequency comb structures in nonlinear Compton and Thomson scattering
• Above-threshold ionization with highly charged ions in super-strong laser fields: III. Spin effects and its dependence on laser polarization