Nonlinear Compton scattering of polarised photons in plane-wave backgrounds

Abstract: We investigate the phenomenology of nonlinear Compton scattering of polarised photons by unpolarised electrons in plane-wave backgrounds. The energy and angular spectra of polarised photons are calculated for linearly- and circularly-polarised pulses, monochromatic fields and constant crossed field backgrounds. When the field intensity is in the weakly nonlinear regime, photons in different polarisation states are predicted to possess very different energy and angular distributions. We explain this difference by calculating the spectrum for nonlinear Thomson scattering in a linearly-polarised monochromatic background and projecting the electron's trajectory onto the different polarisation directions. Finally, we calculate a scenario for multi-GeV electrons and by considering the energy and angular-resolved photon polarisation purity, find one can achieve a GeV-photon beam with polarisation purities of over $90\%$.