Undergraduate Research at Jefferson Lab

Simulating Undulator Emissions using Inverse Compton Scattering Code

Student: Ryan Shahan

School: Old Dominion University

Mentored By: Erik Johnson, Balša Terzić, and Geoffrey Krafft

An undulator is an insertion device composed of a series of dipole magnets that creates an oscillating magnetic field that represents a square wave. As the electron passes through the undulator it gets deflected a small amount by the magnetic field between the magnets. For this project, I will be implementing the undulator's vector potential into the inverse Compton scattering code, named NLCS. This allows the code to simulate the light emitted from an electron as it passes through the undulator. This code can be repurposed due to the vector potential in the code being programmed as only propagating in one direction from a linearly-polarized laser, an undulator's vector potential has the same property. The data from the simulated spectra followed the same behavior as an ideal undulator. These findings will allow scientists and engineers to calibrate an undulator to emit X-rays useful to their research.

[Watch the presentation on YouTube]