Construction of crystal-based light sources with LWFA electron beams

Abstract

We discuss a possibility to construct a crystal-based light source (CLS) of gamma-rays using electron beams produce by Laser Wake Field Acceleration (LWFA). This state-of-the-art acceleration technique is capable of producing few-GeV, ultra-short (fs) electron beams. In the case studies presented, we demonstrate the feasibility of novel gamma-ray CLSs based on exposing single crystals to electron beams available at the ELI-ELBA. The results of rigorous numerical simulations are presented to characterise the radiation emitted emitted by 1 and 4 GeV electrons incident on a 200-micron-thick single silicon crystal along the (110) plane. The simulations were performed using the current divergence as well as a smaller value that is believed to be a realistic to achieve in the near future. We demonstrate that it is feasible to achieve a photon yield of $10^6-10^7$ photons/s in the photon energy range from 5 to 50 MeV. Looking further ahead, we also performed a similar analysis for a 4-GeV positron beam incident on much thicker targets, up to 2 mm oriented silicon crystal. In this case, the photon yield can be increased by an order of magnitude.