451
ISSN 0021-3640, JETP Letters, 2018, Vol. 107, No. 8, pp. 451–454. © Pleiades Publishing, Inc., 2018.
Original Russian Text © A.G. Afonin, E.V. Barnov, G.I. Britvich, A.P. Bugorskii, A.A. Durum, M.Yu. Kostin, I.S. Lobanov, A.V. Lutchev, Yu.E. Sandomirskii, V.I. Pitalev,
I.V. Poluektov, S.F. Reshetnikov, Yu.A. Chesnokov, P.N. Chirkov, A.A. Yanovich, 2018, published in Pis’ma v Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi i Teoreticheskoi Fiziki, 2018, Vol. 107,
No. 8, pp. 477–480.
Emission of Photons at the Interaction of a High-Energy Electron
Beam with a Sequence of Bent Single Crystals
A. G. Afonin
a
, E. V. Barnov
a
, G. I. Britvich
a
, A. P. Bugorskii
a
, A. A. Durum
a
, M. Yu. Kostin
a
,
I. S. Lobanov
a
, A. V. Lutchev
a
, Yu. E. Sandomirskii
a
, V. I. Pitalev
a
, I. V. Poluektov
a
,
S. F. Reshetnikov
a
, Yu. A. Chesnokov
a,
*, P. N. Chirkov
a
, and A. A. Yanovich
a
a
Institute for High Energy Physics, National Research Center Kurchatov Institute,
Protvino, Moscow region, 142281 Russia
*e-mail: chesnokov@ihep.ru
Received February 6, 2018
A radiation source based on the emission of electrons and positrons moving in a short bent crystal has been
recently discovered. The emission of particles is due to oscillations of their trajectories near the point of
reflections, where trajectories approach a tangent to bent atomic planes. In the experiment performed with
the secondary electron beam of the U70 accelerator, it has been shown that the emission intensity can be
increased by using a sequence of oriented bent crystals. Passing through six 2.5-mm-long silicon crystals,
7-GeV electrons lose on average 2.0 GeV on emission. This value is several times larger than that in an amor-
phous medium. Thus, an intense source of radiation has been demonstrated with prospects of application at
accelerators.
DOI: 10.1134/S0021364018080076
A new source of photons based on the motion of
electrons and positrons in a slightly bent crystal was
predicted in [1]. Undergoing bulk reflection, particles
intersect bent crystallographic planes. As a result,
their transverse velocity aperiodically oscillates and a
new type of intense coherent radiation appears.
Because of a large Lorentz factor γ of light leptons, this
radiation is more intense than that from other parti-
cles. Figure 1а illustrates the process of bulk reflection
of an ultrarelativistic particle in a system of bent crys-
tallographic planes. Near the point of contact, the
transverse velocity of the particle approaches zero and
the particle is reflected (undergoes coherent scatter-
ing).
In addition, moving in this region, the particle
intersects a number of crystallographic planes at small
angles; as a result, its velocity oscillates aperiodically
with a significant amplitude (Fig. 1b). Such a motion
of electrons and positrons undergoing bulk reflection
is accompanied by the emission of intense gamma
radiation. The first experiment [2] at the U70 acceler-
ator and subsequent experiments at CERN Super Pro-
OPTICS
AND LASER PHYSICS
Fig. 1. (а) Motion of a particle in a crystal at volume reflection. (b) Time dependence of the transverse velocity of the particle;
the time corresponds to the entry of the particle into the crystal.
v
(a) (b)
= 0 t