Electron-atom collisions in a laser field

The present work is a report on recent progress made in our understanding of electron-atom collisions in a laser field. To some extent it is a continuation of a previous review covering a somewhat larger subject (Can. J. Phys. 63 (1985) 907). We shall discuss the present status of investigations in this field from the theoretical as well as experimental point of view but most of the report will be devoted to an analysis of the various approximation schemes used at present in this field to describe the different aspects of laser-assisted electron-atom interactions. As the table of contents shows, most of the work done so far is treating the atom as a spectator, described by a potential and only very little has been achieved over the years to include the atomic structure into consideration since the inclusion of these structure effects poses considerable computational problems. Since, for example, multiphoton ionization and its inverse process laser-assisted recombination may be considered as one half of a scattering process, it is quite natural that some of the theoretical techniques described here are also of interest for the treatment of other multiphoton processes not considered here since there are several other recent reviews available on these topics. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.