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Technique of undulator tapering in the post-saturation regime is used at the existing x-ray FELs for increasing the radiation power. There are also discussions on the future of high peak and average power FELs for scientific and industrial applications. Diffraction effects essentially influence on the choice of the tapering strategy. Recent studies resulted in an general law of the undulator tapering for a seeded FEL amplifier. In this paper we extend these results for the case of the Self Amplified Spontaneous Emission (SASE) FEL.

Baseline design of a typical X-ray FEL undulator assumes a planar configuration which results in a linear polarization of the FEL radiation. However, many experiments at X-ray FEL user facilities would profit from using a circularly polarized radiation. As a cheap upgrade one can consider an installation of a short helical (or cross-planar) afterburner, but then one should have an efficient method to suppress powerful linearly polarized background from the main undulator. In this paper we propose a new method for such a suppression: an application of the reverse taper in the main undulator. We discover that in a certain range of the taper strength, the density modulation (bunching) at saturation is practically the same as in the case of non-tapered undulator while the power of linearly polarized radiation is suppressed by orders of magnitude. Then strongly modulated electron beam radiates at full power in the afterburner. Considering SASE3 undulator of the European XFEL as a practical example, we demonstrate that soft X-ray radiation pulses with peak power in excess of 100 GW and an ultimately high degree of circular polarization can be produced. The proposed method is rather universal, i.e. it can be used at SASE FELs and seeded (self-seeded) FELs, with any wavelength of interest, in a wide range of electron beam parameters, and with any repetition rate.

Baseline design of a typical x-ray free electron laser (FEL) undulator assumes a planar configuration which results in a linear polarization of the FEL radiation. However, many experiments at x-ray FEL user facilities would profit from using a circularly polarized radiation. As a cheap upgrade, one can consider an installation of a short helical (or cross-planar) afterburner, but then one should have an efficient method to suppress the powerful linearly polarized background from the main undulator. In this paper we propose a new method for such a suppression: an application of the reverse taper in the main undulator. We discover that in a certain range of the taper strength, the density modulation (bunching) at saturation is practically the same as in the case of a nontapered undulator while the power of linearly polarized radiation is suppressed by orders of magnitude. Then strongly modulated electron beam radiates at full power in the afterburner. Considering the SASE3 undulator of the European XFEL as a practical example, we demonstrate that soft x-ray radiation pulses with peak power in excess of 100 GW and an ultimately high degree of circular polarization can be produced. The proposed method is rather universal, i.e., it can be used at SASE FELs and seeded (self-seeded) FELs, with any wavelength of interest, in a wide range of electron beam parameters, and with any repetition rate. It can be used at different x-ray FEL facilities, in particular at Linac Coherent Light Source after installation of the helical afterburner in the near future.

Physical review / Special topics / Accelerators and beams 15, 080702 (2012). doi:10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.15.080702, Published by Soc., [S.l.] @

Physical review / Special topics / Accelerators and beams 13(11), 110701 (2010). doi:10.1103/PhysRevSTAB.13.110701, Longitudinal space charge (LSC) driven microbunching instability in electron beam formation systems of X-ray FELs is a recently discovered effect hampering beam instrumentation and FEL operation. The instability was observed in different facilities in infrared and visible wavelength ranges. In this paper we propose to use such an instability for generation of VUV and X-ray radiation. A typical longitudinal space charge amplifier (LSCA) consists of few amplification cascades (drift space plus chicane) with a short undulator behind the last cascade. If the amplifier starts up from the shot noise, the amplified density modulation has a wide band, on the order of unity. The bandwidth of the radiation within the central cone is given by inverse number of undulator periods. A wavelength compression could be an attractive option for LSCA since the process is broadband, and a high compression stability is not required. LSCA can be used as a cheap addition to the existing or planned short-wavelength FELs. In particular, it can produce the second color for a pump-probe experiment. It is also possible to generate attosecond pulses in the VUV and X-ray regimes. Some user experiments can profit from a relatively large bandwidth of the radiation, and this is easy to obtain in LSCA scheme. Finally, since the amplification mechanism is broadband and robust, LSCA can be an interesting alternative to self-amplified spontaneous emission free electron laser (SASE FEL) in the case of using laser-plasma accelerators as drivers of light sources., Published by Soc., [S.l.]

We propose an analytical approach to characterize undulator radiation near resonance, when the presence of the vacuum-pipe considerably affects radiation properties. This is the case of the far-infrared undulator beamline at the Free-electron LASer (FEL) in Hamburg (FLASH), that will be capable of delivering pulses in the TeraHertz (THz) range. This undulator will allow pump-probe experiments where THz pulses are naturally synchronized to the VUV pulse from the FEL, as well as the development of novel electron-beam diagnostics techniques. Since the THz radiation diffraction-size exceeds the vacuum-chamber dimensions, characterization of infrared radiation must be performed accounting for the presence of a waveguide. We developed a theory of undulator radiation in a waveguide based on paraxial and resonance approximation. We solved the field equation with a tensor Green's function technique, and extracted figure of merits describing in a simple way the influence of the vacuum-pipe on the radiation pulse as a function of the problem parameters. Our theory, that makes consistent use of dimensionless analysis, allows treatment and physical understanding of many asymptotes of the parameter space, together with their region of applicability., Comment: 67 pages, 14 figures

We propose to use Thomson backscattering of far-infrared (FIR) pulses (100–300 μm wavelength range) by a 500 MeV electron beam to generate femtosecond X-rays at the TESLA Test Facility (TTF) at DESY. Using the parameters of the photocathode rf gun and the magnetic bunch compressors of the TESLA Test Facility (TTF), it is shown that electron pulses of 100-fs (FWHM) duration can be generated. Passing the short electron bunches through an undulator (after the conversion point) can provide a FIR high-power source with laser-like characteristics. On the basis of the TTF parameters we expect to produce X-ray pulses with 100-fs duration, an average brilliance of nearly 1013 photons s−1 mrad−2 mm−2 per 0.1% BW at a photon energy 50 keV. The total number of Thomson backscattered photons, produced by a single passage of the electron bunch through the mirror focus, can exceed 107 photons/pulse. We also describe the basic ideas for an upgrade to shorter X-ray pulse duration. It is demonstrated that the TTF has the ca...

In this paper we present a systematic approach for analytical description of SASE FEL in the linear mode. We calculate the average radiation power, radiation spectrum envelope, angular distribution of the radiation intensity in far zone, degree of transverse coherence etc. Using the results of analytical calculations presented in reduced form, we analyze various features of the SASE FEL in the linear mode. The general result is applied to the special case of an electron beam having Gaussian profile and Gaussian energy distribution. These analytical results can be serve as a primary standard for testing the codes. In this paper we present numerical study of the process of amplification in the SASE FEL using three-dimension time-dependent code FAST. Comparison with analytical results shows that in the high-gain linear limit there is good agreement between the numerical and analytical results. It has been found that even after finishing the transverse mode selection process the degree of transverse coherence of the radiation from SASE FEL visibly differs from unity. This is consequence of the interdependence of the longitudinal and transverse coherence. The SASE FEL has poor longitudinal coherence which develops slowly with the undulator length thus preventing a full transverse coherence.

This paper presents investigations of the longitudinal radiative force in an electron bunch. The model of the electron bunch assumes line density distribution. General formulas are presented for the calculation of the radiative force in the bunch moving along an arbitrary small-angle trajectory. The case of a motion in an undulator (wiggler) has been studied in detail. Analytical solutions are obtained for a rectangular and for a Gaussian bunch shape. It is shown that the rate of the bunch energy loss due to the radiative interaction is equal to the power of the coherent radiation in the far zone. Numerical estimations presented in the paper show that the effects of induced energy spread due to the radiative interaction can be important for free electron lasers operating in the infrared wavelength range.

One of the fundamental limitations towards achieving very short wavelength in a self amplified spontaneous emission free electron laser (SASE FEL) is connected with the energy diffusion in the electron beam due to quantum fluctuations of undulator radiation. Parameters of the LCLS and TESLA X-ray FEL projects are very close to this limit and there exists necessity in upgrading FEL simulation codes for optimization of SASE FEL for operation at a shortest possible wavelength. In this report we describe a one-dimensional FEL simulation code taking into account the effects of incoherent undulator radiation. Using similarity techniques we have calculated universal functions describing degradation of the FEL process due to quantum fluctuations of undulator radiation.