Plane Wave Backgrounds in the Worldline Formalism

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Plane-wave backgrounds play a special role in strong-field QED as non-trivial field configuration simple enough to be treated analytically whilst still leading to rich physical consequences. In vacuum and in constant backgrounds, the first quantised, string-inspired “Worldline Approach” to field theoryoffers substantial simplifications and calculational efficiency. We present a new, general approach to incorporating plane wave backgrounds into the Worldline Formalism extending initial work by Ilderton and Torgrimsson. The method uses resummation techniques to take the background into account non-perturbatively and yields “Master Formulae” for scattering amplitudes in the background that may offer an alternative tool to studying QED in plane waves as has been achieved in the constant field case.</jats:p>