Bremsstrahlung background in inelastic electron–nucleus collisions

Abstract

Bremsstrahlung emission by relativistic electrons in collisions with medium heavy spin-zero nuclei is calculated within the plane-wave Born approximation. Coulomb distortion is estimated by a comparison with the Dirac partial-wave theory at energies up to 20 MeV. When integrated over the photon emission angle, the bremsstrahlung spectra help to explain the background of the nuclear excitation spectra in 150Nd reactions which were recently measured on an absolute scale.