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Nonlinear effects are known to occur in light sources when the wiggler parameter, or normalized 4-potential, [formula], approaches unity. In this paper, it is shown that nonlinear spectral features can appear at arbitrarily low values of A if the fractional bandwidth of the undulator, Δ[lowercase_phi_synonym]-1, is sufficiently small and satisfies the condition A2Δ[lowercase_phi_synonym]∼1. Consequences for the spectral brightness of Compton scattering light sources are outlined. Compton and Thomson scattering theories are compared with the Klein-Nishina cross-section formula to highlight differences in the case of narrow band gamma-ray operation. A weakly nonlinear Compton scattering theory is developed in one (plane wave) and three (local plane wave approximation) dimensions. Analytical models are presented and benchmarked against numerical calculations solving the Lorentz force equation with a fourth-order Runge-Kutta algorithm. Finally, narrow band gamma-ray spectra are calculated for realistic laser and electron beams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The next generation of high-energy petawatt (HEPW)-class lasers will utilize multilayer dielectric diffraction gratings for pulse compression, due to their high efficiency and high damage threshold for picosecond pulses. The peak power of HEPW lasers will be determined by the aperture and damage threshold of the final dielectric grating in the pulse compressor and final focusing optics. We have developed a short-pulse damage test station for accurate determination of the damage threshold of the optics used on future HEPW lasers. Our damage test station is based on a highly stable, high-beam-quality optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) operating at 1053 nm at a repetition rate of 10 Hz. We present the design of our OPCPA system pumped by a commercial Q-switched pump laser and the results of the full system characterization. Initial short-pulse damage experiments in the far field using our system have been performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]