Monte Carlo simulation method of polarization effects in Laser Compton Scattering on relativistic electrons

Abstract

Quasi-monochromatic, high energy and highly polarized $\gamma$-ray beam sources based on Compton scattering of laser photons (LCS) on relativistic electrons have developed for the last few decades as established instruments for nuclear physics studies. Following an extensive photoneutron experimental campaign at the LCS $\gamma$-ray beam line of the NewSUBARU synchrotron radiation facility at SPring8, Japan, a dedicated simulation code was developed for characterizing the incident $\gamma$-ray beams. The eliLaBr code is implemented using Geant4 and is available on the GitHub repository, at https://github.com/dan-mihai-filipescu/eliLaBr . The present work describes step-by-step the Monte Carlo algorithm with focus on modeling the polarization properties of the scattered photon. The polarization is treated independently both in the Stokes parameters and in the polarization vector formalisms. An intervalidation between the two methods is given. Based on polarization state description requirements of different Geant4 physics classes, user recommendations are given on which of the two methods to be employed. The spatial and energy distributions for the LCS $\gamma$-ray beam and its Stokes parameters are obtained for head-on laser - relativistic electron collisions, where several incident laser polarization states were considered: linear, unpolarized, circular and mixed linear and circular polarization. The influence of variable incident angle between photon and electron beam was also investigated. We show that the degree of polarization transfer from the incident photon to the scattered photon increases with the collision angle. However, we show that, for $\gamma$-ray sources based on Compton scattering of laser photons on relativistic electrons, the polarization degree of the incident photon is almost completely transferred to the scattered photon for any incident angle.