Simulation of deflection and photon emission of ultra-relativistic electrons and positrons in a quasi-mosaic bent silicon crystal

Abstract

A comprehensive numerical investigation has been conducted on the angular distribution and spectrum of radiation emitted by 855 MeV electron and positron beams while traversing a ‘quasi-mosaic’ bent silicon (111) crystal. This interaction of charged particles with a bent crystal gives rise to various phenomena such as channeling, dechanneling, volume reflection, and volume capture. The crystal’s geometry, emittance of the collimated particle beams, as well as their alignment with respect to the crystal, have been taken into account as they are essential for an accurate quantitative description of the processes. The simulations have been performed using a specialized relativistic molecular dynamics module implemented in the MBN Explorer package. The angular distribution of the particles after traversing the crystal has been calculated for beams of different emittances as well as for different anticlastic curvatures of the bent crystals. For the electron beam, the angular distributions of the deflected particles and the spectrum of radiation obtained in the simulations are compared with the experimental data collected at the Mainz Microtron facility. For the positron beam such calculations have been performed for the first time. We predict significant differences in the angular distributions and the radiation spectra for positrons versus electrons.