Recently, an exponentially decaying waveform (the time dependence of detection probability) of a M\"ossbauer \ensuremath{\gamma}-ray photon was transformed into a regular sequence of short pulses in a sinusoidally vibrating recoilless resonant absorber [F. Vagizov, V. Antonov, Y. V. Radeonychev, R. N. Shakhmuratov, and O. Kocharovskaya, Coherent control of the waveforms of recoilless \ensuremath{\gamma}-photons, Nature (London) 508, 80 (2014)]. In the present paper, we show that the peak amplitude of the pulses can be considerably increased via joint adjustment of optical depth of the absorber and the initial phase of its vibration. This is due to reduction of the photoelectric absorption and maximizing the constructive temporal interference of spectral content of the single-photon wave packet in an optically deep absorber. The ultimate capabilities for transforming a waveform of a 14.4-keV photon from a
57Co radioactive source into a regular train of pulses in a harmonically vibrating
57Fe recoilless resonant absorber are discussed. We show that the shortest pulse duration, produced by this technique, is limited by the highest available vibration frequency of a piezoelectric transducer and at present can be as short as 7.7 ps. The maximum achievable detection probability of the transformed photon at the experimentally feasible conditions is more than two times higher than peak detection probability of the photon emitted by the source and nearly 5.5 times higher than obtained in the above reference.
A technique to transform the waveform of a 14.4 keV photon (time dependence of the photon detection probability or, equivalently, the intensity of the single-photon wave packet) into a regular sequence of short, nearly bandwidth-limited pulses with a controlled number of pulses is proposed. It is based on coherent forward scattering of single X-ray photons from a synchrotron Mössbauer source (SMS) in an optically thick, vibrating, recoilless 57Fe resonant absorber. The possibility of compressing the waveform of an SMS photon into a single short bell-shaped pulse is predicted. The experiment is proposed for compressing a 100 ns duration 14.4 keV single-photon wave packet produced by SMS at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) into a single bell-shaped pulse of less than 20 ns duration and more than twice the peak intensity. Such single-photon coherent pulses are promising for applications in the fast-developing field of X-ray quantum optics, including possible implementation of quantum memory.