Quantum Theory of Scattering of Nonclassical Fields by Free Electrons

Abstract

At present, there is no non-perturbative theory of scattering of nonclassical electromagnetic waves by free electrons that describes the scattering process completely with the help of quantum physics. In this paper, such a theory is presented, which takes into account the statistics and the number of scattered photons. This theory is completely analytical for an arbitrary number of electrons in the system and, in a particular case, is equivalent to the previous theory of scattering as the number of incident photons tends to infinity. It is shown that this theory can differ greatly from the previously known theory of Thomson scattering in the non-perturbative case and at relatively small numbers of incident photons. In addition, this theory is applicable to the scattering of ultrashort pulses by free electrons.