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Abstract

With analytical treatment, the classical dynamics of an ultrarelativistic electron in two counter-propagating circularly polarized strong laser beams with either co-rotating or counter-rotating direction are considered. Assuming that the particle energy is the dominant scale in the setup, an approximate solution is derived and the influence of the rotational sense on the dynamics is analyzed. Qualitative differences in both electron energy and momentum are found for the laser beams being co-rotating or counter-rotating and are confirmed by the exact numerical solution of the classical equation of motion. Despite of these differences in the electron trajectory, the radiation spectra of the electron do not deviate qualitatively from each other for configurations with varying rotational directions of the laser beams. Here, the radiation of an ultrarelativistic electron interacting with counterpropagating laser beams is given in the framework of the Baier-Katkov semi-classical approximation. Several parameter regimes are considered and the spectra resulting from the two scenarios all have the same shape and only differ quantitatively by a few percent.