Effects of transverse electron beam size on transition radiation angular distribution

Abstract In this paper we consider the effect of the transverse electron beam size on the Optical Transition Radiation (OTR) angular distribution in case of both incoherent and coherent emission. Our results confute the theoretical argumentations presented first in Optics Communications 211 , 109 (2002), which predicts a dependence of the incoherent OTR angular distribution on the beam size and emission wavelength. We present here theoretical and experimental data not only to validate the well-established Ginzburg–Frank theory, but also to show the impact of the transverse beam size in case of coherent emission.