The theory of the nonrelativistic potential scattering in the presence of a strong laser field is extended to consider a fluctuating radiation field, having a chaotic non-Markovian statistics. The statistical properties are assumed on the electric field and, carrying on a suitable approximation on the characteristic time scales entering the process, the stochastic properties of the vector potential are derived. As a consequence of the assumed non-Markovian statistics, the field spectrum is non-Lorentzian, and its role on the temporal coherence of the field is discussed. Scattering linewidths and line shapes, as well as coherence factors as functions of intensity, are calculated and discussed in the context of recent experimental results obtained with multimode fields.

• Received 16 May 1988

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.40.3681