Speaker
Description
The coherent interaction of free electrons with optical near-fields and free-space radiation can induce complex wave function dynamics ranging from PINEM sideband formation to stimulated Compton scattering and near-field mediated Kapitza-Dirac effects. Numerical simulations based on the time-dependent Schrödinger equation often provide accurate insight into such phenomena beyond one-dimensional electron models. However, they quickly become computationally demanding when large propagation domains or extensive parameter studies are required.
In this contribution, we discuss numerical approaches for simulating electron-light interactions beyond the no-recoil approximation, with particular emphasis on the comparison of conventional grid-based propagation schemes and meshfree trajectory-guided Gaussian wave packet methods. Representative examples include photon-induced near-field electron microscopy (PINEM) and stimulated Compton scattering, covering both nanostructure-mediated and free-space interaction regimes. We demonstrate that meshfree propagation techniques can accurately reproduce the coherent dynamics of electron wave packets, in close agreement with benchmark grid-based methods, while providing substantial computational speedups compared to established grid-based approaches.