Absolute Double Differential Cross Sections of Bremsstrahlung Produced from 4.0 keV Electrons Incident on Free Ar Atoms

Abstract

New results are reported on the measurements of absolute double differential cross sections (DDCSs) of bremsstrahlung produced from 4.0 keV electrons incident on free Ar atoms in the angular detection range of 45°–120°. A significant reduction of the thick target bremsstrahlung (TTB) of the chamber wall and of the photon transmission windows has been achieved by modifying the experimental set-up used previously; a large reduction of TTB in the present experiments is supported by the results of our model calculations for the ratio of TTB background to the normal bremsstrahlung (NB) spectrum carried out for the employed geometry of the experimental set-up. The results of photon energy distribution measured at different angles and those of angular distributions of photons of a given energy are compared with theoretical predictions of Kissel–Quarles–Pratt (KQP) theory for ordinary bremsstrahlung and with predictions of total bremsstrahlung including polarization bremsstrahlung (PBS) of the stripping approximation (SA). A satisfactory agreement observed between experiment and predictions using SA theory for absolute DDCSs of bremsstrahlung provides evidence for an appreciable contribution of polarization bremsstrahlung at the considered impact energy of electrons on one hand, while on the other hand, it exhibits a large discrepancy (about a factor of 2) in DDCSs of bremsstrahlung photons obtained by experiment and by KQP theory for photon energy distributions at all detection angles measured in these experiments. In addition, present results of the angular dependence of photons of different energies show anisotropic distributions and they are found to be in reasonable agreement with both KQP and SA theories. The satisfactory agreement between experiment and theory for angular distributions is an indication of a significant reduction of the background produced from TTB photons.