We investigate the phenomenology of nonlinear Compton scattering of polarised photons by unpolarised electrons in plane-wave backgrounds. The energy and angular spectra of polarised photons are calculated for linearly- and circularly-polarised pulses, monochromatic fields and constant crossed field backgrounds. When the field intensity is in the weakly nonlinear regime, photons in different polarisation states are predicted to possess very different energy and angular distributions. We explain this difference by calculating the spectrum for nonlinear Thomson scattering in a linearly-polarised monochromatic background and projecting the electron's trajectory onto the different polarisation directions. Finally, we calculate a scenario for multi-GeV electrons and by considering the energy and angular-resolved photon polarisation purity, find one can achieve a GeV-photon beam with polarisation purities of over $90\%$.
We investigate the dependence of polarisation observables in elastic deuteron Compton scattering below the pion production threshold on the spin-independent and spin-dependent iso-scalar dipole polarisabilities of the nucleon. The calculation uses Chiral Effective Field Theory with dynamical Delta(1232) degrees of freedom in the Small Scale Expansion at next-to-leading order. Resummation of the NN intermediate rescattering states and including the Delta induces sizeable effects. The analysis considers cross-sections and the analysing power of linearly polarised photons on an unpolarised target…
The handbag contribution to Compton scattering at moderately large momentum transfer factorises into parton-photon subprocess amplitudes and new form factors representing 1/x-moments of skewed parton distributions. A detailed phenomenological study for polarised and unpolarised real and virtual Compton scattering is presented
We report observables for elastic Compton scattering from $^3$He in Chiral Effective Field Theory with an explicit $Δ(1232)$ degree of freedom ($χ$EFT) for energies between 50 and 120 MeV. The $γ\,{}^3$He amplitude is complete at N3LO, $\mathcal{O}(e^2δ^3)$, and in general converges well order by order. It includes the dominant pion-loop and two-body currents, as well as the Delta excitation in the single-nucleon amplitude. Since the cross section is two to three times that for deuterium and the spin of polarised $^3$He is predominantly carried by its constituent neutron, elastic Compton scatt…
We update the predictions of the SU(2) baryon chiral perturbation theory for the dipole polarisabilities of the proton, $\{α_{E1},\,β_{M1}\}_p=\{11.2(0.7),\,3.9(0.7)\}\times10^{-4}$fm$^3$, and obtain the corresponding predictions for the quadrupole, dispersive, and spin polarisabilities: $\{α_{E2},\,β_{M2}\}_p=\{17.3(3.9),\,-15.5(3.5)\}\times10^{-4}$fm$^5$, $\{α_{E1ν},\,β_{M1ν}\}_p=\{-1.3(1.0),\,7.1(2.5)\}\times10^{-4}$fm$^5$, and $\{γ_{E1E1},\,γ_{M1M1},\,γ_{E1M2},\,γ_{M1E2}\}_p=\{-3.3(0.8),\,2.9(1.5),\,0.2(0.2),\,1.1(0.3)\}\times10^{-4}$fm$^4$. The results for the scalar polarisabilities are …
We describe progress applying the \textit{Worldline Formalism} of quantum field theory to the fermion propagator dressed by $N$-photons to study multi-linear Compton scattering processes, explaining how this approach -- whose calculational advantages are well-known at multi-loop order -- yields compact and manifestly gauge invariant scattering amplitudes.
Two-photon emission of an electron in an electromagnetic plane wave of vanishing frequency is calculated. The unpolarised probability is split into a two-step process, which is shown to be exactly equal to an integration over polarised subprocesses, and a one-step process, which is found to be dominant over the formation length. The assumptions of neglecting spin and simultaneous emission, commonly used in numerical simulations, are discussed in light of these results.
Beam polarisation is an integral part of the physics case of future Linear Colliders. In this contribution, important examples from Higgs coupling measurements, top and electroweak physics at high energies, the Z pole program as well as from searches for production of new particles will be reviewed. The full exploitation of its advantages requires the polarisation to be known at the permille-level. The a polarimetry concept based on the combination of Compton polarimeters, spin-tracking simulations and a global analysis of collision data which has been developed for the ILC to achieve the requ…
We study the Compton scattering in the noncommutative counter part of QED (NC QED). Interactions in NC QED have momentum dependent phase factors and the gauge fields have Yang Mills type couplings, this modifies the cross sections and are different from the commuting Standard Model. Collider signals of noncommutative space-time are studied at the Next Linear Collider (NLC) operating in the $e γ$ mode. Results for different polarised cases are presented and it is shown that the Compton process can probe the noncommutative scale in the range of 1 - 2.5 TeV for typical proposed NLC energies.
We relate ordinary and skewed parton distributions to soft overlap contributions to elastic form factors and large angle Compton scattering, using light-cone wave functions in a Fock state expansion of the nucleon. With a simple ansatz for the wave functions of the three lowest Fock states we achieve a good description of unpolarised and polarised parton distributions at large x, and of the data for the Dirac form factor and for Compton scattering, both of which can be saturated with soft contributions only. Large angle Compton scattering appears as a good case to investigate the relative impo…
The importance of contributions due to the longitudinally polarised virtual photon and the longitudinal-transverse interference term, in the unpolarised ep collisions is discussed. The numerical calculations for the Compton process, e p --> e gamma X, at the HERA collider were performed in the Born approximation. The various distributions in the ep centre-of-mass and Breit frames are presented. These cross sections are dominated by the transversely polarised intermediate photon, even for large values of its virtuality.
We calculate the differential cross sections for Compton scattering of photons described by Hermite Gaussian (HG) wave function in the framework of relativistic quantum mechanics. The HG wave gamma-rays propagating along the z-direction have quantum numbers of nodes of nx and ny in the x- and y-directions, respectively. The calculated differential cross section is symmetric with respect to both the zx- and zy-planes. The nodes whose number is identical with nx and ny appear in the energy spectrum measured in zx- and zy-planes, respectively. These results indicate that it is possible to identif…
Direct photon production in longitudinally polarised proton-proton collisions offers the most direct and unproblematic possibility to determine the polarised gluon distribution of a proton. This information could play a major role for improving our understanding of the nucleon structure and QCD in general. It is hoped that such experiments will be done at RHIC. We present results of detailed Monte Carlo simulations using a code called {\sc SPHINX}. We find that for RHIC energies and large gluon polarisation the Compton graph dominates allowing for a direct test of $Δg$. Triggering on away-side…
We present an analysis of $13$ observables in Compton scattering on the proton. Cross sections, asymmetries with polarised beam and/or targets, and polarisation-transfer observables are investigated for energies up to the $Δ(1232)$ resonance to determine their sensitivity to the proton's dipole scalar and spin polarisabilities. The Chiral Effective Field Theory Compton amplitude we use is complete at N$^4$LO, $\mathcal{O(}e^2δ^4)$, for photon energies $ω\sim m_π$, and so has an accuracy of a few per cent there. At photon energies in the resonance region it is complete at NLO, $\mathcal{O}(e^2δ…
In the strong uniform magnetic field, the noncommutative plane (NCP) caused by the lowest Landau level (LLL) effect, and QED with NCP (QED-NCP) are studied. Being similar to the condensed matter theory of quantum Hall effect, an effective filling factor $f(B)$ is introduced to character the possibility that the electrons stay on the LLL. The analytic and numerical results of the differential cross section for the process of backward Compton scattering in the accelerator with unpolarized or polarized initial photons are calculated. The existing data of BL38B2 in Spring-8 have been analyzed roug…
Compton scattering of twisted photons is investigated within a non-relativistic framework using first-order perturbation theory. We formulate the problem in the density matrix theory, which enables one to gain new insights into scattering processes of twisted particles by exploiting the symmetries of the system. In particular, we analyze how the angular distribution and polarization of the scattered photons are affected by the parameters of the initial beam such as the opening angle and the projection of orbital angular momentum. We present analytical and numerical results for the angular dist…
Dispersion theory of nucleon (nucleus) Compton scattering spin polarizabilities and quasi-optical $γ$-ray polarization plane rotation and birefringence effect in a matter with polarized protons (nuclei)
Usually, photons are described by plane waves with a definite 4-momentum. In addition to plane-wave photons, "twisted photons" have recently entered the field of modern laser optics; these are coherent superpositions of plane waves with a defined projection hbar*m of the orbital angular momentum onto the propagation axis, where m is integer. In this paper, we show that it is possible to produce high-energy twisted photons by Compton backscattering of twisted laser photons off ultra-relativistic electrons. Such photons may be of interest for experiments related to the excitation and disintegrat…
Based on quantum theory, we investigate the distribution of the electrons scattered in nonlinear Compton effect by an electromagnetic plane wave. Deviations of the final electron momentum from its initial value are solely due to quantum effects. The monochromatic case, examined in detail, reveals features of the electron distribution, useful in the understanding of the pulsed plane wave case for particular intensity and electron energy regimes. The graphs displayed focus on the case of head-on or near head-on collision of an energetic electron with an electromagnetic circularly polarized pulse…
The inverse Compton scattering of laser light on high-energetic twisted electrons is investigated with the aim to construct spatially structured x-ray beams. In particular, we analyze how the properties of the twisted electrons, such as the topological charge and aperture angle of the electron Bessel beam, affects the energy and angular distribution of scattered x-rays. We show that with suitably chosen initial twisted electron states one can synthesize tailor-made x-ray beam profiles with a well-defined spatial structure, in a way not possible with ordinary plane-wave electron beams.
An electromagnetic pair-creation cascade seeded by an electron or a photon in an intense plane wave interacts in a complicated way with the external field. Many simulations neglect the vector nature of photons by including their interaction using unpolarised cross-sections. After deriving rates for the tree-level processes of nonlinear Compton scattering and pair creation with an arbitrary linearly-polarised photon in a constant-crossed field, we present results of numerical simulations that include the photon's vector nature. The simulations of seed electrons in a rotating electric field of o…
Compton scattering provides important insight into the structure of the nucleon. For photons up to about 300 MeV, it is parameterised by six dynamical dipole polarisabilities which characterise the response of the nucleon to a monochromatic photon of fixed frequency and multipolarity. Their zero-energy limit yields the well-known static electric and magnetic dipole polarisabilities αand β, and the four dipole spin polarisabilities. Chiral Effective Field Theory (ChiEFT) describes nucleon, deuteron and 3-He Compton scattering, using consistent nuclear currents, rescattering and wave functions. …
Nonlinear Compton scattering is calculated for the collision of an electron with a plane wave pulse. A mid infra-red (IR) peak arises in the photon spectrum due to long-range interference associated with the pulse envelope. The case of a flat-top pulse is studied as a toy model for pulse envelope effects and reduced to two final-state momentum integrations; the case of a sine-squared pulse is studied numerically. A perturbative expansion in charge-field coupling reveals that already at intermediate intensities, many orders are required to correctly capture the structure of the mid-IR peak. By …
In this work, we report calculation for Compton scattering of a gamma-ray vortex with Laguerre Gaussian wave function on an electron in the framework of the relativistic quantum mechanics. We have found the following unexpected feature. The momentum of scattered photon distributes outside of the reaction plane determined by the incident photon and the scattered electron, and hence the energy of the scattered photon also distributes. This novel result indicates that one can identify a gamma-ray vortex by measuring coincidentally the scattered angles of the electron and photon.
Spectra of Thomson and Compton radiation, emitted during electron scattering off an intense laser beam, are calculated using the frameworks of classical and strong-field quantum electrodynamics, respectively. Both approaches use a plane-wave-fronted pulse approximation regarding the driving laser beam. Within this approximation, a very good agreement between Thomson and Compton frequency distributions is observed provided that frequencies of the emitted radiation is relatively low. The dependence of frequency spectra on the laser pulse envelope is analyzed. This becomes important in the contex…
Twisted photons are not plane waves, but superpositions of plane waves with a defined projection hbar m of the orbital angular momentum onto the propagation axis (m is integer and may attain values m >> 1). Here, we describe in detail the possibility to produce high-energy twisted photons by backward Compton scattering of twisted laser photons on ultra-relativistic electrons with a Lorentz-factor gamma=E/(m_e c^2) >> 1. When a twisted laser photon with the energy hbar omega ~ 1 eV performs a collision with an electron and scatters backward, the final twisted photon conserves the angular moment…
We derive production yields for massive pseudo-scalar and scalar axion-like-particles (ALPs), through non-linear Compton scattering of an electron in the background of low- and high-intensity electromagnetic fields. In particular, we focus on electromagnetic fields from Gaussian plane wave laser pulses. A detailed study of the angular distributions and effects of the scalar and pseudo-scalar masses is presented. It is shown that ultra-relativistic seed electrons can be used to produce scalars and pseudo-scalars with masses up to the order of the electron mass. We briefly discuss future applica…
The Compton scattering of X-ray photons, assisted by a short intense optical laser pulse, is discussed. The differential scattering cross section reveals the interesting feature that the main Klein-Nishina line is accompanied by a series of side-lines forming a broad plateau where up to ${\cal O} (10^3)$ laser photons participate simultaneously in a single scattering event. An analytic formula for the width of the plateau is given. Due to the non-linear mixing of X-ray and laser photons a frequency dependent rotation of the polarization of the final state X-ray photons relative to the scatteri…
We discuss the handbag approximation to exclusive deep virtual Compton scattering. After defining the kinematical region where this approximation can be valid, we propose tests for its relevance in planned electroproduction experiments, e + p -> e + p + gamma. We focus on scaling laws in the cross section, and the distribution in the angle between the lepton and hadron planes, which contains valuable information on the angular momentum structure of the Compton process. We advocate to measure weighted cross sections, which make use of the data in the full range of this angle and do not require …
In this paper we derive and discuss the completely spin- and photon-polarisation dependent probability rates for nonlinear Compton scattering and nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production. The locally constant field approximation, which is essential for applications in plasma-QED simulation codes, is rigorously derived from the strong-field QED matrix elements in the Furry picture for a general plane-wave background field. We discuss important polarisation correlation effects in the spectra of both processes. Asymptotic limits for both small and large values of $χ$ are derived and their spin/pol…
The inverse Compton scattering of interstellar photons off cosmic-ray electrons seems to play a more important role in the generation of diffuse emission from the Galaxy than thought before. The background radiation field of the Galaxy is highly anisotropic since it is dominated by the radiation from the Galactic plane. An observer in the Galactic plane thus sees mostly head-on scatterings even if the distribution of the cosmic-ray electrons is isotropic. This is especially evident when considering inverse Compton scattering by electrons in the halo, i.e. the diffuse emission at high Galactic …
In strong uniform magnetic field, the vacuum Non-Commutative Plane (NCP) caused by the lowest Landau level(LLL) effect and the QED with NCP (QED-NCP) are studied. Being similar to the theory of Quantum Hall effect, an effective filling factor $f(B)$ is introduced to character the possibility that the electrons stays on LLL. The backward Compton scattering amplitudes of QED-NCP are derived, and the differential cross sections for the process with polarized initial electrons and photons are calculated. The existing Spring-8's data has been analyzed primitively and some hints for QED-NCP effects …
The spectra of Compton radiation emitted during electron scattering off an intense laser beam are calculated using the framework of strong-field quantum electrodynamics. We model these intense laser beams as finite length plane-wave-fronted pulses, similar to Neville and Rohrlich [Phys. Rev. D {\bf 3}, 1692 (1971)], or as trains of such pulses. Expressions for energy and angular distributions of Compton photons are derived such that a comparison of both situations becomes meaningful. Comparing frequency distributions for both an isolated laser pulse and a laser pulse train, we find a very good…
We study the photon trident process, where an initial photon turns into an electron-positron pair and a final photon under a nonlinear interaction with a strong plane-wave background field. We show that this process is very similar to double Compton scattering, where an electron interacts with the background field and emits two photons. We also show how the one-step terms can be obtained by resumming the small- and large-$χ$ expansions. We consider a couple of different resummation methods, and also propose new resummations (involving Meijer-G functions) which have the correct type of expansio…
Accelerated charges emit both electromagnetic and gravitational radiation. Classically, it was found that the electromagnetic energy spectrum radiated by an electron in a monochromatic plane wave is proportional to the corresponding gravitational one. Quantum mechanically, it was shown that the amplitudes of graviton photoproduction and Compton scattering are proportional to each other at tree level. Here, by combining strong-field QED and quantum gravity, we demonstrate that the amplitude of nonlinear graviton photoproduction in an arbitrary plane wave is proportional to the corresponding amp…
A detailed analysis of the process of two photon emission by an electron scattered from a high-intensity laser pulse is presented. The calculations are performed in the framework of strong-field QED and include exactly the presence of the laser field, described as a plane wave. We investigate the full quantum regime of interaction, where photon recoil plays an essential role in the emission process, and substantially alters the emitted photon spectra as compared to those in previously-studied regimes. We provide a semiclassical explanation for such differences, based on the possibility of assi…
We show that the emission of soft photons via nonlinear Compton scattering in a pulsed plane wave (laser field) is in general infra-red divergent. We give examples of both soft and soft-collinear divergences, and we pay particular attention to the case of crossed fields in both classical and quantum theories.
We study in detail the strong-field QED process of non-linear Compton scattering in short intense plane wave laser pulses of circular polarization. Our main focus is placed on how the spectrum of the back-scattered laser light depends on the shape and duration of the initial short intense pulse. Although this pulse shape dependence is very complicated and highly non-linear, and has never been addressed explicitly, our analysis reveals that all the dependence on the laser pulse shape is contained in a class of three-parameter master integrals. Here we present completely analytical expressions f…
Worldline instantons have previously been used to study the probability of Schwinger pair production (both the exponential and pre-exponential parts) and photon-stimulated pair production (the exponential part). Previous studies obtained the pair-production probability on the probability level by using unitarity, i.e. the imaginary part of the effective action for Schwinger pair production or the imaginary part of the polarization tensor for photon-stimulated pair production. The corresponding instantons are closed loops in the complex plane. Here we show how to use instantons on the amplitude…
We consider the theory of spinor fields written in polar form, that is the form in which the spinor components are given in terms of a module times a complex unitary phase respecting Lorentz covariance. In this formalism, spinors can be treated in their most general mathematical form, without the need to restrict them to plane waves. As a consequence, calculations of scattering amplitudes can be performed by employing the most general fermion propagator, and not only the free propagator usually employed in QFT. In this article, we use these quantities to perform calculations in two notable pro…
Photon-nucleon entanglement in Compton scattering at low and high energies
Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory（布鲁克海文国家实验室物理系）；RIKEN BNL Research Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory（理化学研究所布鲁克海文研究中心）；Université Paris-Saclay - CEA - IRFU（巴黎萨克雷大学-法国原子能和替代能源委员会-核物理研究所）；Center for Frontiers in Nuclear Science, Stony Brook University（纽约州立大学石溪分校核科学前沿中心）
Analytic results for (Q)ED processes in external fields are limited to a few special cases, such as plane waves. However, the strong focussing of intense laser fields implies a need to go beyond the plane wave model. By exploiting Poincaré symmetry and superintegrability we show how to construct, and solve without approximation, new models of laser-particle interactions. We illustrate the method with a model of a radially polarised (TM) laser beam, for which we exactly determine the classical orbits and quantum wave functions. Including in this way the effects of transverse field structure sho…
In the present paper, we consider the process of inverse double Compton (IDC) scattering in the context of astrophysical applications. It is assumed that the two hard X-ray photons emitted from an astrophysical source are scattered on a free electron and converted into a single soft photon of optical range. Using QED S-matrix formalism for the derivation of a cross-section of direct double Compton (DDC) and assuming detailed balance conditions we give an analytical expression for the cross-section of the IDC process. It is shown that at fixed energies of incident photons the inverse cross-sect…
We give exact results for the emission spectra of both nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair production and nonlinear Compton scattering in ultra-intense, ultra-short duration plane wave backgrounds, modelled as delta-function pulses. This includes closed form expressions for total scattering probabilities. We show explicitly that these probabilities do not exhibit the power-law scaling with intensity associated with the conjectured breakdown of (Furry picture) perturbation theory, instead scaling logarithmically in the high-intensity limit.
LHAASO Galactic Plane $γ$-rays Strongly Constrain Heavy Dark Matter
The University of Sydney（悉尼大学）；ARC Centre of Excellence for Dark Matter Particle Physics（暗物质粒子物理卓越研究中心）；The University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；Indian Institute of Science（印度科学学院）；Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics（萨哈核物理研究所）；Homi Bhabha National Institute（霍米·巴巴国立学院）
The scattering of temporally shaped intense laser pulses off electrons is discussed by means of manifestly covariant quantum electrodynamics. We employ a framework based on Volkov states with a time dependent laser envelope in light-cone coordinates within the Furry picture. An expression for the cross section is constructed, which is independent of the considered pulse shape and pulse length. A broad distribution of scatted photons with a rich pattern of subpeaks like that obtained in Thomson scattering is found. These broad peaks may overlap at sufficiently high laser intensity, rendering in…
The canonical quantisation of a charged particle in an intense laser background is developed and the associated two-point function calculated. It is shown how the causal propagator can be extracted. We provide an interpretation of this propagator in terms of degenerate quantum processes. The spectral properties of the propagator are derived and we show how multi-pole structures emerge as a perturbative feature. We also calculate the associated multiple wave-function renormalisations to all orders in perturbation theory. Our calculations are for both circular and linearly polarised plane wave l…
We discuss intensity effects in collisions between beams of optical photons from a high-power laser and relativistic electrons. Our main focus are the modifications of the emission spectra due to realistic finite-beam geometries. By carefully analyzing the classical limit we precisely quantify the distinction between strong-field QED Compton scattering and classical Thomson scattering. A purely classical, but fully covariant, calculation of the bremsstrahlung emitted by an electron in a plane wave laser field yields radiation into harmonics, as expected. This result is generalized to pulses of…
The local-constant-field approximation (LCFA) is an essential theoretical tool for investigating strong-field QED phenomena in background electromagnetic fields with complex spacetime structure. In our previous work [Phys.~Rev.~A~\textbf{98}, 012134 (2018)] we have analyzed the shortcomings of the LCFA in nonlinear Compton scattering at low emitted photon energies for the case of a background plane-wave field. Here, we generalize that analysis to background fields, which can feature a virtually arbitrary spacetime structure. In addition, we provide an explicit and simple implementation of an i…
The polarisation of sunlight after scattering off the atmosphere was first described by Chandrasekhar using a geometrical description of Rayleigh interactions. Kosowsky later extended Chandrasekhar's formalism by using Quantum Field Theory (QFT) to describe the polarisation of the Cosmological Microwave Background radiation. Here we focus on a case that is rarely discussed in the literature, namely the polarisation of high energy radiation after scattering off particles. After demonstrating why the geometrical and low energy QFT approaches fail in this case, we establish the transport formalis…
