Scattering of strong electromagnetic wave by relativistic electrons: Thomson and Compton regimes

The processes of the nonlinear Compton and the nonlinear Thomson scattering in a field of intense plane electromagnetic wave in terms of photon yield have been considered. The quantum consideration of the Compton scattering process allows us to calculate the probability of a few successive collisions k of an electron with laser photons accompanied by the absorption of n photons (nonlinear regime) when the number of collisions and the number of absorbed photons are of random quantities. The photon spectrum of the nonlinear Thomson scattering process was obtained from the classical formula for intensity using the Planck's law. The conditions for which the difference between the classical and the quantum regimes is manifested was obtained. Such a condition is determined by a discrete quantum radiation mechanism, namely, by the mean number of photons k¯ emitted by an electron passing through the laser pulse.