Measurement of the linear polarization of parametric X-radiation

The linear polarization of parametric X-radiation (PXR) produced by 80.5 MeV electrons in a 13 #mu#m thick silicon single crystal has been analyzed by means of a novel method of polarimetry exploiting directional information of the photoeffect in a charge coupled device consisting of 1.3 x 10"6 square pixels of 6.8 #mu#m. The experiment was carried out at the Darmstadt superconducting linear accelerator S-DALINAC providing a low-emittance electron beam. The linear polarization of the (220) reflection observed in 8 narrow angular bins between 20 and 21 with respect to the electron beam direction is consistent with complete local linear polarization. The orientation of the polarization plane, within measurement errors of typically 10 , varies over the diffraction pattern in such a way as to be expected from kinematical theory. The result of this experiment is in contradiction to the only other PXR polarization measurement performed so far. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RR 2916(97-25) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman