Effect of electron spin polarization in laser-assisted electron–proton scattering

Abstract

This work aims to study theoretically the electron–proton scattering for initially spin-polarized electrons in the presence of a circularly polarized electromagnetic field. Using the first Born approximation and the Dirac–Volkov states for dressed electrons, we derive an analytic expression for the differential cross-section with the help of the spin-helicity formalism. Meanwhile, a well-known concept of spin-flip and spin non-flip differential cross sections is applied. The influence of the electromagnetic field on the degree of polarization of the scattered electron is investigated, and the effect of electron spin polarization is examined. We found that the initial spin of the electron can be affected depending on its kinetic energy during the scattering process. This work is a continuation of a recent paper in which we studied the unpolarized electron–proton scattering in the presence of a laser field (Dahiri, et al., 2021).