Air attenuation of high power XFEL beams
Philip Heimann, Andrew Rosenstrom, Ming-Fu Lin, Razib Obaid, Taran Driver, James Cryan, Shanjie Xiao, Sena MacDonald, Sayed Rokni, Alyssa Prinz, Willy Langeveld, Lin Zhang · 2026
Read Air attenuation of high power XFEL beams by Philip Heimann, Andrew Rosenstrom, Ming-Fu Lin, Razib Obaid, Taran Driver, James Cryan, Shanjie Xiao, Sena MacDonald, Sayed Rokni, Alyssa Prinz, Willy Langeveld, Lin Zhang (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13344588.txt.
Description
Philip Heimann and colleagues examined in 2026 how air itself changes when struck by very powerful X-ray pulses from a free-electron laser. At the Linac Coherent Light Source II, air helps contain the beam for safety, yet the beam heats the air it passes through, which could alter how much radiation reaches protected areas.
Heating creates a low-density channel that later pulses can slip through more easily, an effect already seen with focused optical lasers and known as tunnelling. The team tracked how air transmission rises with beam power, as present beams reach about 10 watts and future upgrades may reach several hundred watts. Their measurements give safety planners firmer numbers for shielding, beam stops, and exclusion zones around high-power X-ray sources.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Philip Heimann, Andrew Rosenstrom, Ming-Fu Lin, Razib Obaid, Taran Driver, James Cryan, Shanjie Xiao, Sena MacDonald, Sayed Rokni, Alyssa Prinz, Willy Langeveld, Lin Zhang |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 25 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |