Bremsstrahlung background in inelastic electron–nucleus collisions

Bremsstrahlung emission by relativistic electrons in collisions with medium heavy spin-zero nuclei is calculated within the plane-wave Born approximation. Coulomb distortion is estimated by a comparison with the Dirac partial-wave theory at energies up to 20 MeV. When integrated over the photon emission angle, the bremsstrahlung spectra help to explain the background of the nuclear excitation spectra in ¹⁵⁰Nd $(e,e^{\prime })$ reactions which were recently measured on an absolute scale. (paper)