On the theory of electron motion due to superposed em waves and its application to the free-electron laser with linear polarization

The relativistic motion of a charged particle in an electromagnetic field depending only on one coordinate is shown to be exactly equivalent to the unidimensional motion of a particle having a time and space-varying mass. By means of the averaged Lagrangian method an approximate solution is obtained for the relativistic electron motion in two oppositely moving waves of any polarization, one of them being weaker than the other one, thus generalizing the results previously obtained for circular polarization. A comparison with numerical calculations shows a good agreement. A pendulum-like motion in an effective periodic potential is shown to exist not only for two waves of the same frequency, but more generally when the frequency of the weaker wave is an odd harmonic of the frequency of the stronger one.This research was supported in part by CNR and the Italian Ministry of Education