Physics Commons^™

Improving Performance Of Inverse Compton Sources Through Laser Chirping, Balsa Terzić, A. Brown, I. Drebot, T. Hagerman, E. Johnson, Geoffrey A. Krafft, C. Maroli, V. Petrillo, M. Ruijter

Physics Faculty Publications

We present a new method for computation of radiation spectra in the non-linear regime of operation of inverse Compton sources characterized by high laser intensities. The resulting simulations agree well with the experiments. Increasing the laser intensity changes the longitudinal velocity of the electrons during their collision, leading to considerable non-linear broadening in the scattered radiation spectra. The effects of such ponderomotive broadening are so deleterious that most inverse Compton sources either remain at low laser intensities or pay a steep price to operate at a small fraction of the physically possible peak spectral output. This ponderomotive broadening can be …