Dynamics of an electron spin in strong classical and quantized electromagnetic fields

The electron motion in the presence of a strong classical and quantized pulse of an electromagnetic field is studied with a special emphasis on the spin degree of freedom. It is shown that the Hamiltonian of this system can be separated into two parts with the help of canonical transformations of the field variables, namely the interaction between an electron and a singlecollective- mode of the field and fluctuations relatively to this collective-mode. The application of perturbation theory to the fluctuations allows the conditions of applicability of the singlemode approximation for the quantized external field to be formulated. Furthermore, within this approximation the electron spin evolution is investigated. In addition to fast spin oscillations at the laser frequency, a second time scale is identified due to the intensity-dependent emissions and absorptions of field quanta, that is collapse and revival dynamics. The effect is observable at the experimentally feasible intensity of 1018 W=cm2. After this, we switch to the regime of higher intensities, when the fluctuations of the external field can be neglected. We investigate the asymmetries in the electron scattering arising due to the electron polarization and pulse duration, and constrain the optimal conditions for the asymmetry observation