Author: T. G. Blackburn
Peer-reviewed paper: https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.109.022234
Pre-print: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.03592
Notebook by: Óscar Amaro 2023
Abstract: While the Landau-Lifshitz equation, which describes classical radiation reaction, can be solved exactly and analytically for a charged particle accelerated by a plane electromagnetic wave, no such solutions are available for quantum radiation reaction. Yet upcoming experiments with ultrarelativistic electron beams and high-intensity lasers will explore the regime where both radiation-reaction and quantum effects are important. Here we present analytical solutions for the mean and variance of the energy distribution of an electron beam that collides with a pulsed plane electromagnetic wave, which are obtained by means of a perturbative expansion in the quantum parameter χ0. These solutions capture both the quantum reduction in the radiated power and stochastic broadening, and are shown to be accurate across the range of experimentally relevant collision parameters, i.e. GeV-class electron beams and laser amplitudes a0≲200.