Caustic structures in the spectrum of x-ray Compton scattering off electrons driven by a short intense laser pulse
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2016-12-05 v1 Atomic Physics
Plasma Physics
Abstract
We study the Compton scattering of x-rays off electrons that are driven by a relativistically intense short optical laser pulse. The frequency spectrum of the laser-assisted Compton radiation shows a broad plateau in the vicinity of the laser-free Compton line due to a nonlinear mixing between x-ray and laser photons. Special emphasis is placed on how the shape of the short assisting laser pulse affects the spectrum of the scattered x-rays. In particular, we observe sharp peak structures in the plateau region, whose number and locations are highly sensitive to the laser pulse shape. These structures are interpreted as spectral caustics by using a semiclassical analysis of the laser-assisted QED matrix element.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1507.08868,
title = {Caustic structures in the spectrum of x-ray Compton scattering off electrons driven by a short intense laser pulse},
author = {D. Seipt and A. Surzhykov and S. Fritzsche and B. Kampfer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1507.08868},
year = {2016}
}