Scattering of Very Intense Electromagnetic Waves

The conventional dispersion formula for the scattering cross section of light is extended to include the case of a very high intensity light. The resulting formula predicts an appreciable decrease of the cross section compared to the conventional theory, as the intensity of the light increases. The decrease appears when the energy density of the light becomes comparable to ${\left[\frac{\hslash ({\omega }_0-\omega )}{M}\right]}^2{\epsilon }_0$, where ${\omega }_0$ is the resonance frequency of the scattering medium, $\omega$ is the frequency of the light, $M$ is the transition dipole moment, and ${\epsilon }_0$ is the capacitivity of the vacuum. In a typical case, this means we need about ${10}^{10}$ W/${\mathrm{cm}}^2$ of the light intensity, which is obtainable with a focused optical maser.