Stokes–anti-Stokes light-scattering process: A photon-wave-function approach

X Photon Wave Function

The Photon Wave Function

Elastic Photon-Photon Scattering through Four-Wave Coupling

According to the theory of quantum electrodynamics, photon-photon scattering can take place via exchange of virtual electron-positron pairs. Effectively, the interaction can be formulated in terms of non-linear corrections to Maxwell’s equations, and hence may be treated by classical non-linear electrodynamics. Due to the strong electromagnetic fields needed to reach any noticeable effect, phot...

Photon plasma–wave interaction via Compton scattering

The Kompaneets theory of photon kinetic evolution due to the Compton effect in the absence of absorption and emission is extended to the case of the Vlasov plasma wave oscillations. Under the assumption that the electron distribution function at equilibrium is perturbed by a solution of the linearised Vlasov equation in the long-wavelength limit, a solution of the Kompaneets kinetic equation fo...

Photon polarisation in light-by-light scattering: finite size effects

We derive a simple expression for the photon helicity and polarisation-flip probabilities in arbitrary background fields, in the low energy regime. Taking the background to model a focused laser beam, we study the impact of pulse shape and collision geometry on the probabilities and on ellipticity signals of vacuum birefringence. We find that models which do not account for pulse duration can o...