Theory of electron scattering from laser excited atoms

Abstract

An expression is derived for the intensity of electrons inelastically scattered from an atomic state prepared by optical pumping. The expression is a sum of state multipoles, the coefficient of each multipole being a spherical harmonic in the polar coordinates of the light direction for circularly polarized light, or the direction of the electric vector for linearly polarized light times a weight function depending on the population of the initial state. These weight functions are given in closed form for both linearly and circularly polarized light.