PHYSICS OF PLASMAS

VOLUME 5, NUMBER 5

MAY 1998

High-intensity scattering processes of relativistic electrons in vacuum*

F. V. Hartemann,a)
Institute for Laser Science and Applications, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550 and Department of Applied Science, University of California, Davis, California 95616

Received 18 November 1997; accepted 11 February 1998 Recent advances in novel technologies such as chirped pulse amplication and high gradient rf photoinjectors make it possible to study experimentally the interaction of relativistic electrons with ultrahigh intensity photon elds. Femtosecond laser systems operating in the TWPW range are now available, as well as synchronized relativistic electron bunches with subpicosecond durations and THz bandwidths. Ponderomotive scattering can accelerate these electrons with extremely high gradients in a three-dimensional vacuum laser focus. The nonlinear Doppler shift induced by relativistic radiation pressure in Compton backscattering is shown to yield complex nonlinear spectra which can be modied by using temporal laser pulse shaping techniques. Colliding lasers pulses, where ponderomotive acceleration and Compton backscattering are combined, could also yield extremely short wavelength photons. Finally, strong radiative corrections are expected when the Doppler-upshifted laser wavelength approaches the Compton scale. These are discussed within the context of high eld classical electrodynamics, a new discipline borne out of the aforementioned innovations. 1998 American Institute of Physics. S1070-664X 98 95905-5

I. INTRODUCTION

The physics of laserelectron interactions changes dramatically at relativistic intensities, where the transverse momentum of the charge in the laser wave, as measured in electron units, exceeds unity. Three fundamental vacuum processes are know to occur in this regime: relativistic ponderomotive scattering,1 ultrahigh intensity Compton backscattering,2,3 and nonlinear KapitzaDirac scattering.4,5 These interactions correspond to the following geometries: collinear propagation, head-on collision, and electron diffraction in a laser standing wave, respectively. If, in addition, the Doppler-shifted laser wavelength, as measured in the instantaneous rest frame of the electron, becomes comparable to the classical electron radius (r 0 2.8178 10 15 m), strong radiative corrections to the electron dynamics are expected. This is the case for ultrarelativistic electron beams, such as the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center SLAC beam, where the laser eld can approach the Schwinger critical eld6 for pair creation. Because the normalized vector potential and the average photon number of the laser pulse are both Lorentz invariant, it is possible to observe the scattering event in a highly relativistic frame where the laser light is Doppler-upshifted to extremely short wavelengths, while its intensity remains ultrahigh. In this new regime, both nonlinear Doppler shifts3 and radiation damping2 dominate the electron dynamics. These effects, as well as three-dimensional 3-D ponderomotive scattering could play an important role in the physics of the collider.
*Paper qThpI2-2 Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 42, 2061 1997 . Invited speaker. a Electronic mail: fredh@gregor.llnl.gov
1070-664X/98/5(5)/2037/11/$15.00 2037

The physics of the aforementioned radiative corrections is fundamentally related to the electron self-interaction problem, which is central to the foundations of both classical and quantum electrodynamics CED and QED . In the study of CED at high eld strengths, the DiracLorentz equation2,7 describes the covariant dynamics of a point charge, including radiative corrections representing the recoil momentum of the photon eld interacting with the particle. This effect is assumed to be equivalent to a reaction force connected to the self-interaction of the charge with its electromagnetic eld. Although the quantum electrodynamical nature of the electronphoton interaction must be taken into account for a full description of such phenomena, it is hoped that a large class of interactions may be appropriately studied within the context of high eld strength CED. In addition, a thorough understanding of that topic is required for a comprehensive approach to nonlinear QED. A number of conceptual problems arise within the classical framework, including electromagnetic mass renormalization, runaway solutions, and preacceleration or acausal effects, and must be carefully addressed. In QED, the Dirac equation describes the temporal evolution of the wave function of a relativistic spin 1/2 particle. At high eld strengths, the DiracCoulomb problem can be solved exactly, owing in part to the hidden supersymmetry of the problem, but a general treatment of QED in time-dependent external elds remains to be dened. In particular, multiphoton nonlinear Compton scattering has not yet been fully described in terms of the Dirac equation, and the classical relativistic particle limit remains elusive.8,9 Finally, one might quote Diracs comment7 concerning the electron self-interaction: ...it seems more reasonable to suppose that the electron is too simple a thing for the question of the laws governing its structure to arise, and thus quantum
1998 American Institute of Physics

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mechanics should not be needed for the solution of the difculty. Coherent synchrotron radiation in a free-electron laser FEL 10 has been extensively studied;1114 therefore, the focus of this paper will be the interaction of relativistic electrons with ultrahigh intensity laser pulses, in vacuum. In Sec. II, I review the relativistic dynamics of a single electron subjected to the classical electromagnetic eld of a plane wave of arbitrary intensity. The canonical invariants of the system are derived, and the spectral properties of the scattered light are analyzed. In particular, for circular polarization, I obtain an exact analytical expression for the full nonlinear spectrum. Temporal laser pulse shaping is briey discussed as an experimental method to increase the contrast between the main backscattered line and the nonlinear satellites due to the relativistic radiation pressure. Colliding lasers pulses, where ponderomotive acceleration and Compton backscattering are combined, are also considered and the wavelength scaling of this interaction is derived, showing its potential to produce extremely high energy photons. 3-D effects are presented in Sec. III. To accurately describe the focusing and diffraction of the drive laser wave in vacuum, the paraxial propagator approach is used, where the mass shell condition vacuum dispersion relation is approximated by a quadratic Taylor expansion in the 4-wave number. This approach proves extremely accurate for any realizable laser focus, and yields analytical expressions for the elds. In addition, the gauge condition is satised exactly everywhere, thus yielding a proper treatment of the axial electromagnetic eld components due to wave front curvature. Section IV focuses on radiative corrections. The DiracLorentz equation is derived using an explicit evaluation of the electron self-interaction, and a classical description of nonlinear Compton scattering is proposed. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Sec. V.

0,A

k x

where is the relativistically invariant phase of the traveling wave along the electron trajectory. Choosing k (1,0,0,1), with the wave propagating in the z direction, we have d d uz , 3 , and the 4-

which denes the light-cone variable momentum transfer equations read du d du z d d d dA d u , dA d

Equation 5 shows that is invariant: 0 0 (1 0 ); additionally, Eq. 4 is readily integrated to yield the wellknown transverse momentum invariant15 u A , 6

and the energy and axial momentum are immediately obtained using the fact that the 4-velocity is a unit 4-vector ( 2 1 u2 u 2 ): z uz A2
0 0

2 A2 2 1

II. LORENTZMAXWELL ELECTRODYNAMICS, PLANE WAVE THEORY A. Canonical invariants

The quadratic dependence of the energy and axial momentum on the 4-vector potential, measured in electron units, distinguishes the relativistic scattering regime, where A 1. In this regime, the ponderomotive force dominates the electron dynamics, yielding nonlinear slippage and Doppler shifts.1,3 Equation 8 also provides a scaling for the maximum energy in a plane wave: * / 0 A 2 , for relativistic electrons. Finally, the electron position is given by x( ) (1/ 0 ) u( )d .
B. Compton scattering, nonlinear spectra

The electron 4-velocity and 4-momentum are dened as dx /d and p m 0 cu , with u u 1. Here, is u the proper time along the dimensionless electron world line x ( ). In the absence of radiative corrections,2,7 the natural length scale of the problem is the the laser wavelength, c/ 0 , while time is measured in units of 1/ 0 , charge in units of e, and mass in units of m 0 . Within these basic units, any relevant physical quantity can be normalized by simple dimensionality considerations: For example, momentum is normalized to m 0 c, the 4-vector potential is measured in units of m 0 c/e, and the 4-wave number is given in units of 0 /c. The energymomentum transfer equations are driven by the Lorentz force du d A A u . 1

The focus of this section is the spectral characteristics of the radiation scattered by the accelerated charge. As discussed by Jackson,15 the distribution of energy radiated per unit solid angle, per unit frequency can be derived by considering the instantaneous radiated power, as described by the Larmor formula, and applying Parsivals theorem to obtain d 2 N ,n d d a 4
2

exp i t

nx dt ,

For plane waves, the 4-vector potential of the laser wave is given by

where is the frequency measured in units of 0 , and a 1/137.036 is the ne structure constant. The quantity in Eq. 9 corresponds to the average radiated photon number.

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Phys. Plasmas, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 1998

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Using the phase as the independent variable, one now has d 2 N ,n d d a 4 z

2

2 0

n u
2

exp i

nx

10

Here, I have used the plane wave invariance of 0. The most interesting case is the backscattered radiation, where most of the power is radiated and where one obtains the maximum relativistic Doppler upshift. In this case, n A ( ), z , z( ) nx( ) 2z( ), z z u( ) and Eq. 10 can now be recast in a manifestly covariant way, to read d 2N z d d a 4
2

A
2

exp i

A2

11

where I have introduced the normalized Doppler-shifted frequency (1 0 )/(1 0 ). The functional dependence of the spectrum is now independent of 0 , which only sets the frequency scale. This fact is not surprising, as it results directly from covariance: By changing the reference frame in which the scattering is viewed, one can vary the sign of 0 and go continuously from the FEL geometry10 to the laser acceleration geometry.1621 For the FEL, the laser frequency is Doppler upshifted, while it is downshifted in the second case. In both cases, the normalized vector potential and the average photon number are conserved as they are both Lorentz invariant.

FIG. 1. Top: behavior of the normalized axial electron position for circular and linear polarizations. Bottom: nonlinear spectral function for circularly polarized light and different values of A 0 . In both cases, cosh 2 intensity 5. envelope,

A 0e i
C. Circular polarization

A0

x cos cosh

y sin

Having derived the expression for the nonlinear backscattered light spectrum for arbitrary polarizations and intensities, I will now focus on one important case: circularly polarized plane waves. In this case, the dimensionless 4vector potential can be expressed as A ( ) A 0 g( ) x sin y cos , which implies that the magnitude of the 4-vector potential varies adiabatically as the pulse intensity envelope: A A A2 ( ) A 2 g 2 ( ). A simple physi0 cal model for the pulse envelope is given by a hyperbolic secant, namely g( ) cosh 1( / ), so that the electrons axial position can be determined analytically.22 In this case, A2 d A2 0 cosh2 A2 0 1 tanh , 12 d

exp i

A 2 tanh 0

13

This Fourier transform can be evaluated analytically by performing two changes of variable;3 namely, I rst set y e / , then x (y 2 1)/(y 2 1), with the result that d 2N , z d d a 2 A 8 0
2

,1,2iA 2 0 cosh ,1,2iA 2 0 2

2

. 1

14

cosh

and the nonlinear backscattered spectrum is now proportional to

Here, is the degenerate conuent hypergeometric 1 function,22 and i ( 1) . The electron dynam2 1 ics are shown in Fig. 1 top , while the behavior of the nonlinear spectral function is illustrated in Fig. 1 bottom for 5, and different values of A 0 . Within this context, the onset of nonlinear relativistic spectral effects corresponds to

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FIG. 2. Nonlinear Compton backscattered spectra for a linearly polarized cosh 2 pulse of width 5 and increasing intensities.

FIG. 3. Top: hyperbolic secant envelope with a attop, and axial electron position. Bottom: nonlinear spectrum for A 0 2, 5, 10.

a situation where the electron phase and the axial Doppler shift A2 ( )d become comparable because of the intense radiation pressure of the drive laser pulse. This is directly connected with the relativistic mass shift of the dressed electron within the ultrahigh intensity laser pulse. For linear polarization, the nonlinear effects are even stronger because there is an extra modulation of the axial velocity at the second harmonic of the laser. As shown in Fig. 2, chaotic spectra are predicted. It is quite remarkable that an elementary electrodynamical process, such as the scattering of coherent light by a single electron describing a well-behaved trajectory can yield such complex relativistic nonlinear spectra when the radiation pressure strongly modulates the electrons proper time.
D. Temporal pulse shaping

A very important consequence of the nonlinear Doppler effect described in the previous sections resides in the fact that, at ultrahigh intensities, the peak photon number density in each line is approximately constant across the spectrum.3 This indicates that for ultrashort laser pulses, even in the case of circularly polarized light, the backscattered energy is redistributed over a wide spectral range instead of contributing to a single, narrow, Compton backscattered line. This is a potentially serious difculty for applications, such as the

collider, which require the generation of a single, intense, highly collimated, narrow x-ray or -ray line. This problem can be alleviated by shaping the temporal envelope of the pump laser pulse in order to minimize the variation of the nonlinear Doppler shift during the interaction. In such a scheme, as illustrated in Fig. 3 top , the main part of the laser pulse is at, thereby yielding a constant axial electron velocity during most of the interaction. The associated Doppler shift thus remains nearly constant, resulting in the radiation of a narrow spectral line, as indicated in Fig. 3 bottom . During the rise and the fall of the laser pulse, transient lines are radiated, but they are kept to a minimum by using this technique, which is rather analogous to the use of a tapered wiggler entrance in a FEL.10 To study the effects of pulse shaping on the Compton backscattered spectra in the nonlinear regime, and to nd the optimum temporal prole of the laser pulse envelope, I introduce variable pulse shapes which are modeled theoretically by considering a circularly polarized pulse with a composite envelope, including a cosh 1 rise and fall, and a constant attop : g( ) cosh 1( / ) for 0, g( ) 1 for 0 , and g( ) cosh 1 ( )/ for . The pulse shape is then parametrized by the ratio of the attop to the FWHM full width at half-maximum , which is equal to / 2 ln(2 3) . For 0, the pulse is a hyperbolic 1, the pulse is square. secant, and for It is easily seen that in the nonlinear Fourier integral Eq.

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Phys. Plasmas, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 1998

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FIG. 4. Energy contrast ratio as a function of pulse shape for various intensities.

11 , the contribution of the attop is simply proportional to

2

A 0e i

A0 0

x sin

y cos

exp i

1 A2 d , 0 15

FIG. 5. Top: geometry of the colliding pulses interaction process. Bottom: photon energy linear scale as a function of beam and drive laser energies for a slab geometry. 0 800 nm, y 5 0 , 20 fs FWHM.

where the factor 1 A 2 corresponds to the relativistic Dop0 pler shift due to the slower axial motion of the electron caused by the constant laser radiation pressure. The integral in Eq. 15 yields a sinc spectrum. It is clear that for , the line at the normalized Doppler-shifted frequency * 1/(1 A 2 ) dominates the backscattered spectrum, as 0 shown in Fig. 3 bottom . The shorter wavelength lines correspond to a combination of the multiphoton lines resulting from the nonlinear Doppler shift during the transient parts of the pulse and the oscillations of the sinc. The benecial effects of square optical pulses, which can be generated by holographic ltering at the Fourier plane of a CPA laser, as demonstrated by Weiner et al.,23 can be evaluated quantitatively by considering the evolution of the ratio of the energy in the main line to the total backscattered energy, as a function of the pulse shape. The results are shown in Fig. 4, clearly validating the pulse shaping approach at ultrahigh intensities, and demonstrating that square optical pulses correspond to the optimum shape for Compton backscattering applications.
E. Colliding laser pulses

thereby preserving the robustness and simplicity of VPA,1 as compared to other laser acceleration schemes. It will be shown that for this process, the photon energy scales as h 4(hc/ 0 ) 2 A 4 , where 0 is the laser wavelength pump 0 0 and probe , 0 is the initial beam energy, and eE 0 0 2 m 0c 2 e 0 m 0 c 5/2 I0 2 0

A0

In this section, a novel concept to produce extremely short wavelength photons is suggested, in which vacuum ponderomotive acceleration VPA is combined with Compton backscattering Fig. 5 top . In this manner, the high energy acquired by an electron beam within the drive laser pulse may be effectively extracted in the form of short wavelength photons by a colliding probe laser pulse, without requiring complex structures to terminate the interaction,

is the dimensionless amplitude of the 4-vector potential associated with the drive laser wave; as expressed in terms of the focused intensity I 0 . As a numerical example, 1 TeV photons could be produced with an 8.5 1020 W/cm2 drive pulse at 800 nm, interacting with a 550 MeV beam. These parameters correspond to A 0 20. By comparison, a FEL using the same wavelength for an electromagnetic wiggler would require over 200 GeV of beam energy. The advantageous energy scaling of the proposed interaction results directly from the fact that Compton backscattering occurs when the initial electron energy has been boosted by VPA to its maximum value, given by * / 0 A 2 , as shown in Sec. II A. 0 It is interesting to evaluate the length required by this acceleration process. For a circularly polarized pulse interacting with ultrarelativistic electrons, the nonlinear slippage length is approximately given by z (c/ 0 ) 0 1 0 A 2 g 2 ( ) d , where 0 is the injection phase of the elec0 tron. For a sin 4 temporal intensity envelope, which closely matches a Gaussian, with a nite duration 0 t, one

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F. V Hartemann

3 2 2 nds z 8 A 0 ). The acceleration length required 0 c t(1 to produce 1 GeV photons with a drive laser strength of 20 and a duration of 20 fs FWHM is estimated at 2.5 m. This estimate represents an upper bound, as 3-D effects reduce the average laser strength along the electron path. The next step of the theoretical analysis consists in showing that the drive and probe laser pulses are decoupled because of their very different Doppler shifts. The phase of t z, and the difthe counterpropagating probe pulse is ferential phase variation between each pulse evolves along (d /d ) the electron trajectory according to d /d u z )/( u z) (1 ) 2 4 2 . The (d /d ) ( 0 0 0 last two equalities are approximately valid if the radiation pressure of the probe pulse is much smaller than that of the drive pulse. As a direct consequence, the drive laser elds are frozen during the interaction between the accelerated electron and the probe pulse. It should also be noted that the relation u A Ap still holds. Here, Ap is the normalized potential of the probe laser. In addition, in the case of a linearly polarized drive pulse, it is clear that the elds are equal to zero at the maximum electron energy, since they are proportional to dA x /d and A2 ( ) A 2 ( ). Another adx vantage of the linear polarization is that the transverse position of the electron during backscattering is quite small: u x ( )d , which yields x * x( 0) x( ) (c/ 0 0 ) ( 0 /4 ) 0 (1 exp( 2/4) 0 for a Gaussian 0 )A 0 pulse. However, this equation also indicates that the maximum transverse excursion during VPA can be quite large: x ( 0 / ) 0 (1 0 )A 0 . This must be taken into account when dening the dimensions of the slab focus geometry, where the beam cross section is x y , with y chosen as small as possible to minimize the drive pulse energy. Finally, the angle of the electron trajectory during backscattering is dened by the ratio of the transverse and axial momenta in the drive laser, and is small:

d 2N , * d d

a 4
2

1 1

* *
1 1 d

Ap

exp i A2 p

* *
2

17

In the case of a Gaussian wave packet, in the linear regime (A 2 1), the phase integral can easily be performed to yield p d 2N , * d d a 4
2

A2 4

2 4 0A 0 2

4
2 4 0A 0 2

exp

18

where the frequency of the backscattered line has the expected value, 4 2 A 4 . To estimate the total photon yield, 0 0 Eq. 18 can be integrated over all frequencies, to obtain dN( * )/d a (2/ 3 ) 2 A 2 A 4 . The solid angle can 0 p 0 then be approximated by / 2 A 4 to yield the average 0 0 number of photons scattered by a single electron: N /N e a 2/ A 2 . p The overall scaling of the process, for a slab geometry, is summarized in Fig. 5 bottom , where the following parameters are xed: 0 800 nm, y 5 0 , and where the pulse duration is 20 fs FWHM. Using the frequency scaling, the relation between the intensity and the vector potential, and the equation for the transverse excursion, with the constraint that the drive pulse energy W I 0 x y , the photon energy can be expressed in terms of the electron beam energy 0 , and the drive pulse energy W, as h /e W 4/3 2/3 , or more 0 accurately as 4 1 4
2/3 0 y

W t

4/3 2/3 0 ,

19

* arctan

ux uz

0
0 0

A0 A2 0 1 2 16
0

1 . 0A 0

2 5 2 where l have introduced the parameter 0 m 0 c /e 0.6931 GW. Finally, the speculative nature of this proposal should be stressed: A conclusive argument for or against the practical feasibility of this physical process as a useful radiation source requires detailed studies of some potential problems, including coherence, electron beam phase space, 3-D and diffraction effects, and radiation losses in parasitic synchrotron radiation channels, all contributing to the nal brightness and efciency of the photon source.

Despite its low value, this angle is critical in obtaining the full Doppler upshift for the backscattered radiation. To illustrate this point, it is instructive to compare the Doppler up* * shift along the z axis, ( * u z )/( * u z ) (1 0 )/(1 2 2 2 0 ) (1 A 0 ) 4 0 A 0 , which is seen to scale as the square of the drive eld, to the full Doppler upshift, ( * * (1 *) 2 4 2A 4. u * )/( * u * ) 0 0 The Compton backscattered spectrum is obtained from Eq. 11 , by replacing the initial velocity by the maximum velocity due to the drive laser:

III. THREE-DIMENSIONAL DYNAMICS, PONDEROMOTIVE SCATTERING

Detailed knowledge of the 3-D electromagnetic eld distribution of the focusing laser wave is required to study high intensity scattering and properly model experimental results. For example, two ultrahigh intensity relativistic electron scattering experiments are currently underway at SLAC and CEA. In the rst case, nonlinear multiphoton Compton backscattering is investigated using the SLAC 50 GeV beam and a tightly focused TW-class laser;24 at the Commissariat a

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Phys. Plasmas, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 1998

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FIG. 7. Transverse and axial vector potential components, in the plane of polarization, at three different times. The pulses are six cycles long and f :3.

FIG. 6. Transverse wave number spectrum and comparison between the paraxial and exact dispersion for f :3.

When the laser pulse characteristics are dened at focus (z 0), the electromagnetic eld distribution can be obtained in any given z plane by performing the following integral: A x,y,z,t 1 2
3

lEnergie Atomique CEA , low energy electrons are accelerated by a TW laser.25 In both instances, the 3-D nature of the focused laser pulse is an essential feature of the experiment and must be described accurately to interpret the resulting data.
A. The paraxial propagator

k , ,z 0 exp i t 21

k xx k y y

2 k2 z d 2 k d ,

The 3-D behavior of the laser electromagnetic eld propagating in vacuum is now described within the context of the paraxial propagator formalism. The wave equation governing the 4-vector potential is A 4 j A 4 j 0, where I have introduced the 4-gradient operator, dened as / x ( t ,), and the 4-current density j ( ,j). In addition, it is important to note that the 4A potential must satisfy the Lorentz gauge condition 0. In vacuum no sources , a general solution to the wave equation can be constructed as a Fourier superposition of wave packets of the form A x 1 2
4

where I have introduced the focal spectral density (k , ,z 0). A The physics of this solution can be understood as follows: The temporal evolution of each wave packet is described by the frequency spectrum, while the transverse prole of the laser wave is expressed as an integral over a continuous spectrum of transverse vacuum eigenmodes. The dispersion relation indicates how each transverse component of the wave packet propagates, thus yielding wave front curvature and diffraction. In vacuum, the gauge condition reduces to A 0, and can be satised by requiring that A G. For a linearly polarized Gaussian-elliptical focus, the generating eld, G, takes the form G x yGy x , A0 g t exp k0 x w 0x
2

k exp ik x d k , 20 G y x,y,z 0,t

22 y w 0y
2

where the 4-wave number k satises the vacuum dispersion relation, which is also the mass shell condition for the photon eld: 2 (k k ) 0.

where w 0x refers to the beam waist along the x axis and w 0y refers to the beam waist along the y axis, A 0 is the amplitude of the vector potential at focus, k 0 corresponds to the central

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laser wavelength, and g(t) is the temporal variation of the laser wave, which can be arbitrary. The propagation integral is now approximated by G y x,y,z,t 1 2
3

G y k ,z 0,

exp i k2

t k xx k y y z d 2k d , 23
FIG. 8. Scan of A 0 and initial z for a constant pulse energy of 20 J. 1 m, FWHM 20 fs, initial energy 10 MeV, x i y i 0.
0

2k 0

where the square root factor has been Taylor expanded to second order around 1 and k 0. It is clear that the exact and Taylor expanded axial phase differ only for large values of the transverse wave number, where the spectral density is vanishingly small, as illustrated in Fig. 6. The integrals over d 2 k are readily obtained, as they correspond to complex Gaussians: G y x,y,z,t A0 g k0 exp exp i 1 x wx z 1 z arctan 2 z 0x
2

z z 0x
2

1/4

1 y wy z
2

z z 0y

1/4

the transverse electron excursion scales like 1/ 1/ 0 (1 ). For linear polarization, the largest scattering 0 0 energies are achieved for f x f y . To assess the feasibility of laser acceleration based on this scattering process, the total energy in the laser pulse is obtained by integrating the Poynting vector ux over the focal spot and the pulse duration to obtain W m 0c 2 3 w 0x w 0y c t A2 , 0 32 r0 0 0 25

1 z arctan 2 z 0y
2

x z z 0x w x z

y z z 0x w y z

,
1 2 0

24 k w2 0x,y

where w x,y (z) w 0x,y 1 (z/z 0x,y ) 2 and z 0x,y represent the Rayleigh ranges for each f number.

B. Ponderomotive scattering

The vector potential of the focusing wave is shown in Fig. 7. The elds are then derived from this vector potential. The algorithm developed to model the dynamics of a charge interacting with the 3-D laser elds employs the secondorder RungeKutta method and uses the axial electron phase as the integration variable to handle the nonlinear slippage and the relativistic Doppler shift. For a laser focus with extremely large f numbers, excellent agreement is found between the numerical results and the theoretical analytic expressions obtained for plane wave dynamics; for smaller values of f , scattering is obtained. To obtain efcient scattering, the electron must be seeded far from focus, so that by the time it has slipped into the nonlinear temporal phase of the pulse, the focus is reached and the electron interacts with the spatiotemporal maximum of the laser wave. High energy scattering occurs for intermediate values of the f numbers: for low values, the focus is too tight and the electron scatters away too early; for very large values, we recover the plane wave interaction. The fact that, for higher initial injection energies, efcient scattering requires larger values of the f number is not surprising, since

where r 0 is the classical electron radius. The case of a cylindrical focus (w 0x w 0y w 0 ) is considered, where the pulse FWHM is maintained at 20 fs, and the product A 0 w 0 is kept constant at 250 mm constant energy of 20 J , while A 0 is varied between 1 and 20, and the injection position is varied between 20 mm and focus. The results are shown in Fig. 8, and clearly indicate the existence of an optimum combination of f number and laser intensity for high energy scattering, approximately obtained for a normalized vector potential of 17.5 and f :23. Here, there is a sharply dened acceptance range in the initial position, and the scattering energy reaches 0.25 GeV. The acceleration process occurs over 3 mm, yielding a gradient of 85 GeV/m. These laser parameters correspond to the next generation of CPA lasers.26
IV. DIRACLORENTZ ELECTRODYNAMICS, RADIATIVE CORRECTIONS

The DiracLorentz equation2,7 describes the covariant dynamics of a classical point electron, including the radiation reaction effects due to the electron self-interaction. The main steps of Diracs derivation are outlined here. For conciseness, I now use electron units, where length, time, mass, and charge are measured in units of r 0 , r 0 /c, m 0 , and e, respectively. In these units, 0 1/4 , and 0 4 . The electron 4-current density is js x u x
4

x d

26

and the corresponding self-electromagnetic eld F s As A s satises the driven wave equation A s (x )

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Phys. Plasmas, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 1998

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4 js (x ), which can be solved in terms of Green functions as A s (x ) 4 u (x )G(x x )d . The self-force can now be evaluated as Fs u As x As u G x x d . u x u x 27

The advanced and retarded Green functions both depend on the spacetime interval s 2 (x x ) (x x ) :G 2 (s ) 1 (x 0 x 0 )/( x 0 x 0 ) . The partial derivatives can now be replaced by the operator 2(x x ) / s 2, and Eq. 27 reads Fs 2 G d s2 u x u x x x u x x x

One of the conceptual difculties associated with this equation is the existence of unphysical, runaway solutions: Contracting Eq. 34 with a , it is easily seen that, in the ( 0 /2) absence of an external eld it reduces to a a (d/d )(a a ), which admits the runaway solution a a ( ) a a 0 exp(2 / 0). To avoid these unphysical solutions, one must require that the DiracRohrlich DR asymptotic condition7,27 be satised: lim a ( ) 0. Also note that the second radiative correction term corresponds to the radiated 4-momentum H ; thus I can rewrite Eq. 34 as a F u da d dH . d 35

28

In the case of an external electric eld deriving from a static potential, the time-like component of the DiracLorentz equation, which describes energy conservation, takes the simple form here, H 0 W d d u
0

is introduced, so At this point, the new variable that the range of integration explicitly includes the electron 0 . To evaluate the integral in Eq. 28 , singular point one can now use TaylorMcLaurin expansions in powers of : x u x x u u
1 2

d2 d 2

dW d

d d

d d

W , 36

and can formally be integrated to yield the conservation law W d d , 37

a u

1 6

d a
1 2

,
2

29 , 30

d a

d u . Using the above expanwhere the 4-acceleration a 2 sions, one rst nds that s 2 , which yields G/ s 2 (1/2 )( G/ ). With this, the expression for the selfelectromagnetic force now reads
2

Fs

da d

a a

. 31

This equation can be integrated by parts; using the retarded causal Green function, one nds Fs 1 a 2 d 2 da 3 d u a a . 32

which indicates that, provided the DR asymptotic condition d /d 0 is satised, the electron potential enlim ergy is converted to kinetic energy and radiation. Within this context, the small value of the ne structure constant, which corresponds to the ratio of the classical to quantum electron scale classical electron radius divided by the electron Compton wavelength , guarantees that the acausal effects related to the electromagnetic mass renormalization will be smeared by quantum uctuations before the strong classical radiative correction regime is reached, thus preventing naked acausalites. In the case of nonlinear Compton scattering, the Dirac Lorentz equation can be given as a L du d E , L da d u a a , 38

The corresponding 4-momentum transfer equation now reads 1 1 2

2 3

da d

a a

, 33

L z L 0 u E ,

where 0 is the Compton time scale, in the units of r 0 /c used here. The divergent integral on the left-hand side of the equation is the innite electromagnetic mass which multiplies the 4-acceleration. Dirac rst proposed7 to renormalize this term away by using the time symmetrical Green function 1 G ); with this one obtains the DiracLorentz G 2 (G equation a F u
0

u z , and where we recognize the light-cone variable the laser transverse electric eld. 0 2r 0 /3c 0.626 10 23 s is the Compton time scale. Subtracting the axial component of Eq. 38 from the temporal component, we obtain an equation governing the evolution of , d d d2 d 2 a a . 39

da d

a a

34

(dA /d ), we also obtain an equation Noting that E governing the evolution of the canonical momentum:

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2046

Phys. Plasmas, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 1998

F. V Hartemann

Finally, the DiracLorentz equation can be integrated backward in time to avoid runaways due to the electromagnetic mass renormalization7,27,28 and the Compton backscattered spectrum is obtained by evaluating d 2N , z d d a 4
2

u
2

exp i

uz

. 44

For the SLAC beam parameters, and a TW-class laser, the result is shown in Fig. 9 bottom . At this intensity (0.22 TW/ m2), the nonlinear Doppler shift yields complex spectra for both Lorentz and DiracLorentz dynamics, but the lines are shifted, in similarity with the Lamb shift, and damped at high frequencies.
V. CONCLUSIONS

FIG. 9. Top: fractional nal electron energy after nonlinear Compton backscattering. Bottom: Lorentz and DiracLorentz backscattered spectra.

d d

d 2u d 2

u a a

40

Introducing the small parameter 0 0 , which measures the Doppler-shifted laser wavelength in units of r 0 , and using as the independent variable, Eq. 39 now reads d d d2 d 2
2 2

du du d d

41

In this paper, I have reviewed the classical theory of a number of high-intensity scattering processes of relativistic electrons in vacuum, that recent advances in novel technologies such as chirped pulse amplication and high gradient rf photoinjectors make possible to investigate experimentally. In particular, ponderomotive scattering has been studied as a possible way to accelerate electrons with extremely high gradients in a 3-D vacuum laser focus. The nonlinear Doppler shift induced by relativistic radiation pressure in ultrahigh intensity Compton backscattering was shown to yield complex nonlinear spectra which can be modied by using temporal laser pulse shaping techniques. Colliding lasers pulses, where ponderomotive acceleration and Compton backscattering are combined, also has the potential to yield extremely short wavelength photons. Finally, the strong radiative corrections that are expected when the Doppler-upshifted laser wavelength approaches the Compton scale, as is the case in ongoing experiments at SLAC, have been discussed within the context of high eld classical electrodynamics, a new discipline borne out of the aforementioned innovations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Since the right-hand side of Eq. 41 is at least of order , we can replace the terms in the brackets by their zeroth-order Lorentz dynamics approximation; in this case, we obtain a simple differential equation for the light-cone variable perturbation d d 1 A 2g 2 0 , 42

where we recognize the envelope of the circularly polarized laser pulse. Equation 42 can easily be integrated to yield 1 1
0

A2 0

g2

d .

43

In collaboration with A. K. Kerman Massachusetts Institute of Technology , J. R. Van Meter, University of California, Davis UCD , A. L. Troha UCD , A. Gupta CCNY , H. A. Baldis UCD and Lawrence Livermore Natural Laboratory , and N. C. Luhmann, Jr. UCD . I also wish to personally thank D. T. Santa Maria for very stimulating discussions. This work is supported in part by Department of Defense/Air Force Ofce of Scientic Research DoD/ AFOSR MURI F49620-95-1-0253, AFOSR ATRI F30602-94-2-001, ARO DAAHO4-95-1-0336, and LLNL/ LDRD DoE W-7405-ENG-48.
F. V. Hartemann, S. N. Fochs, G. P. Le Sage, N. C. Luhmann, Jr., J. G. Woodworth, M. D. Perry, Y. J. Chen, and A. K. Kerman, Phys. Rev. E 51, 4833 1995 . 2 F. V. Hartemann and A. K. Kerman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 627 1996 .
1

This equation describes the electron recoil for beam parameters similar to those of SLAC,24 as illustrated in Fig. 9 top . It is clear that at sufcient intensities, the relative radiative energy loss becomes signicant.

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Phys. Plasmas, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 1998

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