Date of Award

Summer 8-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Physics

Program/Concentration

Physics

Committee Director

Balša Terzic

Committee Member

Geoffrey Krafft

Committee Member

Lawrence Weinstein

Committee Member

Alexander Godunov

Committee Member

Sookyung Joo

Abstract

Inverse Compton scattering (ICS) is a versatile mechanism for producing bright, tunable, and quasi-monochromatic x-ray and gamma-ray radiation through the interaction of relativistic electrons with intense laser pulses. These sources have applications spanning medicine, archaeological studies, materials science, and fundamental research, motivating continued efforts to improve both their performance and the accuracy of theoretical models used to describe them. As nextgeneration laser and accelerator facilities continue to reach increasingly intense regimes, efficient and accurate simulation techniques have become essential for the design and optimization of ICS sources. This dissertation presents the development of analytical and computational methods for modeling inverse Compton scattering in both the classical and quantum regimes. Beginning with a review of the theoretical foundations of Thomson and Compton scattering, a unified formalism for calculating radiation spectra from arbitrary laser pulse shapes is established. An analytical approximation based on piecewise flat laser pulses is then developed to accurately model scattering from realistic laser envelopes while substantially reducing the computational cost relative to direct numerical integration. The convergence properties and accuracy of this method are investigated for a variety of pulse shapes and interaction parameters. The effects of radiation reaction are subsequently examined using both classical and quantum descriptions. Analytical and numerical models are compared across a broad range of laser intensities, highlighting the regimes in which quantum recoil and stochastic photon emission become significant. To improve the efficiency of large-scale simulations, a radiation reaction model based on the critical photon energy is introduced and shown to reproduce the results of stochastic Monte Carlo simulations with significantly reduced computational expense. Finally, these theoretical developments are incorporated into numerical simulation tools for realistic inverse Compton scattering sources. The implementation of the flat-pulse approximation within the simulation framework is described and benchmarked against existing methods. Together, the analytical techniques and computational algorithms developed in this work provide efficient and accurate tools for modeling nonlinear inverse Compton scattering and radiation reaction, supporting the design and optimization of future compact, high-brightness photon sources for scientific and technological applications.

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DOI

10.25777/4fy1-3052

ISBN

9798193214625

ORCID

0000-0001-5003-109X

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