  Based on the cross correlation analysis of the Kikuchi diffraction patterns
high-resolution EBSD is a well established method to determine the internal
stress in deformed crystalline materials. In many cases, however, the stress
values obtained at the different scanning points have a large (in the order of
GPa) scatter. As it was first demonstrated by Wilkinson and co-workers this is
due to the long tail of the probability distribution of the internal stress
($P(\sigma)$) generated by the dislocations present in the system. According to
the theoretical investigations of Groma and co-workers the tail of $P(\sigma)$
is inverse cubic with prefactor proportional to the total dislocation density
$<\rho>$. In this paper we present a direct comparison of the X-ray line
broadening and $P(\sigma)$ obtained by EBSD on deformed Cu single crystals. It
is shown that $<\rho>$ can be determined from $P(\sigma)$. This opens new
perspectives for the application of EBSD in determining mesoscale parameters in
a heterogeneous sample.
