DIRAC ELECTRON IN THE FIELD OF A PLANE ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE,
Abstract
Dirac's equation for the electron in the outer field permits a precise solution only in a small number of cases, among which the most important ones prove to be a uniform magnetic field, a Coulomb field, and the field of a plane wave. In Section One a solution of Dirac's equation is given for the case of an arbitrary plane electromagnetic wave based on the use of the projective matrices which leads to substantial simplifications. An important problem for the applications is breaking down the solutions into electron and positron states. It is clear that for the correct solution of this problem one requirement is quite insufficient so that this breakdown (division) coincides with the ordinary one when the field is absent. The equation shown proves to be invalid. In Section Two there is given a solution of this problem based on the consideration of a limited electromagnetic train (of waves). In (6) the planewave solution is used for computing the Compton dispersion of intense photon flows. In this situation the question arises about the orthogonality of the system of solutions of Dirac's equation. The proof of the orthogonality of the solution obtained is presented in Section Three. Finally, Section Four the case of the monochromatic wave is discussed. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 31, 1966
- Accession Number
- AD0646292
Entities
People
- I. I. Goldman
Organizations
- National Air and Space Intelligence Center