Electrons in an eccentric background field

Abstract

We present a description of electrons propagating in an elliptically polarised plane wave background which includes circular and linear polarisations as special cases. We calculate to all orders in the background field the two point function and relate it to various expressions found in the literature. The background field induced mass shift of the electron is shown to be polarisation independent in the full elliptic class. The matrix nature of this mass shift in the fermionic theory is discussed. The extent to which a momentum space description is possible for this system is clarified.

17 pages Title changed in journal. Some references added

References in corpus (8)

• Exact classical and quantum dynamics in background electromagnetic fields
• First-order strong-field QED processes in a tightly focused laser beam
• Analytical tools for investigating strong-field QED processes in tightly focused laser fields
• The photon polarization tensor in pulsed Hermite- and Laguerre-Gaussian beams
• Propagation in an intense background
• On beam models and their paraxial approximation
• The Fermionic Propagator in an Intense Background
• Sideband Mixing in Intense Laser Backgrounds

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Advances in QED with intense background fields
• The effect of interference on the trident process in a constant crossed field
• ALP production through non-linear Compton scattering in intense fields
• Electron-seeded ALP production and ALP decay in an oscillating electromagnetic field
• Renormalisation of the Volkov propagator
• One loop Volkov propagator in the Lorentz class of gauges
• The simplest description of charge propagation in a strong background