Nonlinear Compton scattering in a frequency-modulated field
Antonino Di Piazza, Kenan Qu
When an electron is accelerated, it emits radiation. In the relativistic quantum realm the elementary radiation process is the emission of a single photon, a process known as nonlinear Compton scattering in the case of an electron moving in the presence of a strong electromagnetic wave. This process is typically described within the Furry picture, where the electromagnetic wave is described as a classical background field and the electron-positron field is quantized in the presence of that background field. Equivalently one can quantize the electron-positron field in the vacuum but then the photon emission process is described as a transition from an initial state to a final state both featuring, apart from the electron (the initial state) and the electron and the photon (the final state), the same coherent state of photons appropriately related to the electromagnetic wave. Here, we consider a more general situation where the initial and the final state feature the same squeezed coherent state. Then, we specialize to the case where the coherent state corresponds to a plane-wave field and the mostly populated modes of the coherent state are also squeezed. We show that, when quantum fluctuations induced by the squeezing in the coherent field are negligible, a condition well satisfied at available squeezing levels, the squeezing effects effectively reduce to a frequency modulation of the plane-wave field corresponding to the coherent state. By means of numerical examples we show that at already available squeezing levels the emission spectrum of nonlinear Compton scattering and the total photon yield can be altered significantly. Analytical explanations of the main numerical results are also provided.
quant-pharXiv:2605.04011•May 6, 2026