Polarization of Bremsstrahlung from Monocrystalline Targets

Abstract

We investigate the polarization of bremsstrahlung of high-energy electrons in a monocrystalline target. It is shown that, owing to interference effects, the polarization is considerably increased above its value when amorphous targets are used (by a factor of 1.5 for typical cases); moreover, the total emitted bremsstrahlung cone has an over-all net polarization with respect to the plane formed by the direction if incidence and the crystal axis. This latter fact provides a means of producing partially polarized radiation with an intensity sufficient for performing significant high-energy polarization experiments. The dependence on the emission angle of the interference radiation is also calculated. The influence of elastic scattering of electrons is estimated.