Laser-assisted elastic electron-atom collisions

The authors analyse the 'elastic' scattering, accompanied by the transfer of l photons, of fast electrons by atoms in the presence of a strong laser field. They focus their attention on the region of small momentum transfers, where the 'dressing' effect due to the dipole distortion of the target by the laser field is shown to produce important modifications of the differential cross section. Detailed calculations are presented for both atomic hydrogen and helium targets at an incident electron energy of 100 eV and for various geometrical configurations.