Propagation of polarized high-energy photons in crystals

Abstract

The density matrix is obtained for short-wavelength photons passing through a medium. For sufficiently large thicknesses of a target this matrix is expressed by the forward scattering amplitude of a photon. For multi-GeV photons scattering via virtual electron-positron pairs is the most important process. Its amplitude in a crystal is calculated. The results obtained are used to find the optimal thicknesses, orientations and types of crystals for the circular - to - linear polarization conversion process.

15 pages, 5 Postscript figures

References in corpus (1)

• Variation in polarization of high-energy $\gamma$-quanta traversing a bunch of polarized laser photons

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Coherent bremsstrahlung, coherent pair production, birefringence and polarimetry in the 20-170 GeV energy range using aligned crystals
• Results on the Coherent Interaction of High Energy Electrons and Photons in Oriented Single Crystals