Synchrotron and Smith-Purcell radiations from a charge rotating around a cylindrical grating

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the combined synchrotron and Smith-Purcell radiation emitted by a charge rotating around cylindrical conductors and gratings, revealing unique interference effects and directional radiation properties.

Contribution

It derives new formulas for radiation intensity from a rotating charge near cylindrical conductors and gratings, highlighting the interplay between synchrotron and Smith-Purcell radiations.

Findings

Interference effects can enhance or suppress radiation at certain harmonics.

Higher harmonics can have non-vanishing intensity at small angles in grating geometries.

Directional radiation can be achieved by tuning grating parameters.

Abstract

We investigate the radiation from a charge rotating around conductors with cylindrical symmetry. First the problem is considered with a charge rotating around a conducting cylinder immersed in a homogeneous medium. The surface charge and current densities induced on the cylinder surface are evaluated. A formula is derived for the spectral-angular density of the radiation intensity. In the second part, we study the radiation for a charge rotating around a diffraction grating on a cylindrical surface with metallic strips parallel to the cylinder axis. The effect of the grating on the radiation intensity is approximated by the surface currents induced on the strips by the field of the rotating charge. The expressions are derived for the electric and magnetic fields and for the angular density of the radiation intensity on a given harmonic. We show that the interference between the synchrotron and Smith-Purcell radiations may lead to interesting features. In particular, the behavior of the radiation intensity on large harmonics can be essentially different from that for a charge rotating in the vacuum or around a solid cylinder. Unlike to these limiting cases, for the geometry of diffraction grating the radiation intensity on higher harmonics does not vanish for small angles with respect to the cylinder axis. For given characteristics of the charge, by the choice of the parameters of the diffraction grating, one can have highly directional radiation near the normal to the plane of the charge rotation. With decreasing energy, the relative contribution of the synchrotron radiation decreases and the Smith-Purcell part is dominant.