Scattered spectra from inverse Compton sources operating at high laser fields and high electron energies

Abstract

As Compton x-ray and gamma-ray sources become more prevalent, to understand their performance in a precise way, it becomes important to be able to compute the distribution of scattered photons precisely. For example, codes have been developed at Old Dominion University which were used to understand the performance of the Dresden Compton Source in detail. An ideal model would (i) include the full Compton effect frequency relations between incident and scattered photons, (ii) allow the field strength to be large enough that nonlinear effects are captured, and (iii) allow the effects of electron beam emittance to be introduced and studied. Various authors have considered various pieces of this problem, but until now, no analytical or numerical procedure is known to us that captures these three effects simultaneously. Here we present a model for spectrum calculations which simultaneously cover these aspects. The model is compared to a published full quantum mechanical calculation and found to agree for a case where both full Compton effect and nonlinear field strength are present. We use this model to investigate chirping prescriptions to mitigate ponderomotive broadening.