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Abstract

If a charge is hit by a superstrong laser pulse, such as those that can be created
with state-of-the-art laser technology, it experiences an extreme acceleration causing
the motion of the charge to be strongly affected by its own emission of radiation.
In classical electrodynamics this effect can be taken into account by adding a new
force term (also called radiation reaction) to the equation of motion of the charge
in addition to the Lorentz force. Here we show how the radiation reaction force can
be used to control the deflection of a relativistic beam of electrons colliding headon
with a plane-wave laser pulse as well as in the head-on and oblique incidence
collision with a tightly focused laser pulse. In addition, strong-field QED effects are
also considered by correcting the classical radiation reaction force with a quantum
factor, leading to a semiclassical treatment. All of this is done by performing analytic
calculations and by numerical integration with a fourth order Runge-Kutta method,
which is tested against the analytic result of the plane wave case.