Three-pulse photon-photon scattering

Abstract

We calculate signals of real photon-photon scattering in the collision of three laser pulses. Taking goal parameters from the Station of Extreme Light at the upcoming Shanghai Coherent Light Source, we consider two scenarios: (i) the collision of three optical pulses; (ii) the collision of an XFEL with two optical pulses. Our analysis uses the infinite Rayleigh-length approximation from previous work and is benchmarked against full numerical results. Although experimentally more difficult to perform, we find that colliding three laser pulses offers certain advantages in the detection of scattered photons by separating their frequency, momentum, and polarization from the background.