Seminari INFN

Bremsstrahlung and pair production enhancement in strong crystalline fields

by Laura Bandiera (INFN Ferrara)

Europe/Rome
Aula Conversi (Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi)

Aula Conversi

Dip. di Fisica - Edificio G. Marconi

Description
Twenty years ago at CERN, it was demonstrated that the strong crystalline field of a single-element crystal, e.g. Si or W, may lead to a huge decrease in the shower length, if the beam direction is aligned with the crystal axes. Recently, we extent these studies to high-Z scintillator crystals typically exploited in e.m. calorimeters. In particular, we measured a strong radiation length reduction for 120 GeV electrons interacting with a lead tungstate crystals (PWO), from 8.9 to 1.6 mm in the case of beam alignment w.r.t crystal axes. These results open the way for a variety of applications in High-Energy Physics and Astrophysics. Such applications span from forward calorimeters/preshowers, to pointing-strategy in satellite-borne gamma-ray telescope to decrease the required size to fully contain the e.m. shower generated by GeV to TeV particles.
Slides