Measurement and application of electron stripping of ultrarelativistic 208Pb81

Abstract An electron beam derived from stripping of ultrarelativistic lead ions has been used to perform calibration measurements on the electron spectrometer of the Advanced Wakefield experiment at CERN. As part of this study, new measurements of the stripping cross-section for ultrarelativistic hydrogen-like lead ions passing through aluminium and silicon have been obtained which demonstrate good agreement with existing measurements and theory. Improvements in terms of electron beam quality and ion beam diagnostic capability, as well as further applications of such an electron beam, are discussed.