Low-intensity nonlinear spectral effects in compton scattering

Nonlinear effects are known to occur in Compton scattering light sources, when the laser normalized potential A approaches unity. In this Letter, it is shown that nonlinear spectral features can appear at arbitrarily low values of A, if the fractional bandwidth of the laser pulse Δ??1 is sufficiently small to satisfy A2Δ??1. A three-dimensional analysis, based on a local plane wave, slow-varying envelope approximation, enables the study of these effects for realistic interactions between an electron beam and a laser pulse, and their influence on high-precision Compton scattering light sources.