0
$\begingroup$

I am curious about how extremely relativistic electrons (10s of GeVs to single TeVs) scatter when going through the interplanetary and interstellar medium, which is a thin plasma. I have read about beam power and beam weapons producing these, but I have not found a lot of consistent information on how to model this or even make approximations for how much scattering could be expected at what ranges, which would limit the use of either.

Please note, I am NOT a scientist, just a curious person with some programming acumen, and a few science courses from college over a long time ago. I am happy to learn and have done as much as I can before asking here, of course, but I am not at the level of many people here.

Obviously, particle beams with with gammas in the millions are not likely to bloom much in a true vacuum, but I was told Mott scattering could cause lots of slight deflections to add up. Very slight perturbations can indeed add up over distances measured in light seconds to light minutes! The issue is is that I am not interested in single electrons, I am interested in the collective beam physics of bunches of them, and relativistic ones at that.

How could I approach this? Is this something truly out of the reach of a layperson?

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
3
  • $\begingroup$ You could try learning about thin target Bremsstrahlung or inverse Compton scattering but I am not sure how accessible these topics are to a layperson. The basic issue is that you cannot accelerate (i.e., change direction or speed) an electron without it emitting some form of electromagnetic radiation. The spectrum of this radiation is often specific to the acceleration mechanism, which allows astronomers to diagnose various things in far off galaxies etc. $\endgroup$
    – honeste_vivere
    Commented May 2 at 13:23
  • $\begingroup$ My interest is on the behavior of the beam bunches going through light seconds (300,000km, rounded up) of thin plasma, specifically how much it would spread out from scattering effects. Are you suggesting that brem and IC emissions would dominate that scattering? $\endgroup$
    – cthon
    Commented May 2 at 16:08
  • $\begingroup$ Well a relativistic beam, if dense enough, would also be unstable to plasma instabilities that radiate electromagnetic waves. During the radiation of the waves, the beam is scattered and decelerated (i.e., must conserve energy and momentum), which would be very fast compared to Brem. and IC if the beam propagates into a tenuous medium. $\endgroup$
    – honeste_vivere
    Commented May 2 at 19:19

0

Reset to default