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A semi-classical formalism is used to calculate the radiation reaction of a relativistic particle in a straight, continuous focusing system. Due to the absence of quantum excitation in such a focusing system, the radiation damping rate of the transverse action obtained using this formalism agrees exactly with the result from the classical Lorentz-Dirac radiation reaction equation. In the limit where the pitch angle of the particle is much smaller than the radiation opening angle, the transverse action damps exponentially with an energy-independent rate that is much faster than the energy decay rate. In the opposite limit, both the transverse action and the energy damp with power laws and their relative rates are comparable. The general time-dependence of the transverse action damping and the energy decay are obtained analytically from these rate equations.

We show that the radiation damping rate of the transverse action of a particle in a straight, continuous focusing system is independent of the particle energy, and that no quantum excitation is induced. This absolute damping effect leads to the existence of a transverse ground state to which the particle inevitably decays and yields the minimum beam emittance that one can ever attain, $\ensuremath{\gamma}{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}_{\mathrm{min}}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}/2\mathrm{mc}$, limited only by the uncertainty principle. Because of adiabatic invariance, the particle can be accelerated along the focusing channel in its ground state without any radiation energy loss.

We report the first measurements of x-ray single-pulse duration and two-pulse separation at the Linac Coherent Light Source using a cross-correlation technique involving x rays and electrons. An emittance-spoiling foil is adopted as a very simple and effective method to control the output x-ray pulse. A minimum pulse duration of about 3 fs full width at half maximum has been measured together with a controllable pulse separation (delay) between two pulses. This technique provides critical temporal diagnostics for x-ray experiments such as x-ray pump-probe studies. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.254802

It is widely believed that a drive laser with uniform temporal and spatial laser profiles is required to generate the lowest emittance beam at the photoinjector. However, for a given 3 ps smooth-Gaussian laser temporal profile, our recent simulations indicate that a truncated-Gaussian laser spatial profile produces an electron beam with smaller emittance. The simulation results are qualitatively confirmed by later analytical calculation, and also confirmed by measurements: emittance reduction of $\ensuremath{\sim}25%$ was observed at the linac coherent light source (LCLS) injector with a truncated-Gaussian laser spatial profile at the nominal operating bunch charge of 150 pC. There was a significant secondary benefit---laser transmission through the iris for the truncated-Gaussian profile was about twice that compared to the nearly uniform distribution, which significantly loosens the laser power and quantum efficiency requirements for drive laser system and photocathode. Since February 9, 2012, the drive laser with the truncated-Gaussian spatial distribution has been used for LCLS routine user operations and the corresponding free electron laser power is at least the same as the one when using the nearly uniform spatial profile.

Compact laser-plasma accelerators can produce high energy electron beams with low emittance, high peak current but a rather large energy spread. The large energy spread hinders the potential applications for coherent free-electron laser (FEL) radiation generation. We discuss a method to compensate the effects of beam energy spread by introducing a transverse field variation into the FEL undulator. Such a transverse gradient undulator together with a properly dispersed beam can greatly reduce the effects of electron energy spread and jitter on FEL performance. We present theoretical analysis and numerical simulations for self-amplified spontaneous emission and seeded extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray FELs based on laser plasma accelerators.

Energy extraction efficiency of a free electron laser (FEL) can be greatly increased using a tapered undulator and self-seeding. However, the extraction rate is limited by various effects that eventually lead to saturation of the peak intensity and power. To better understand these effects, we develop a model extending the Kroll-Morton-Rosenbluth, one-dimensional theory to include the physics of diffraction, optical guiding, and radially resolved particle trapping. The predictions of the model agree well with that of the GENESIS single-frequency numerical simulations. In particular, we discuss the evolution of the electron-radiation interaction along the tapered undulator and show that the decreasing of refractive guiding is the major cause of the efficiency reduction, particle detrapping, and then saturation of the radiation power. With this understanding, we develop a multidimensional optimization scheme based on GENESIS simulations to increase the energy extraction efficiency via an improved taper profile and variation in electron beam radius. We present optimization results for hard x-ray tapered FELs, and the dependence of the maximum extractable radiation power on various parameters of the initial electron beam, radiation field, and the undulator system. We also study the effect of the sideband growth in a tapered FEL. Such growth induces increased particle detrapping and thus decreased refractive guiding that together strongly limit the overall energy extraction efficiency.

We report on the feasibility of high wavevector temporal speckle correlation measurements at the world’s first hard x-ray free electron laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS). Due to the chaotic nature of LCLS, the spectral profile of the x-ray radiation fluctuates on a pulse-to-pulse basis. Its impact on the determination of the single shot speckle contrast in a wide angle x-ray scattering geometry is investigated by analyzing FEL power spectra that are simulated based on the nominal operational parameters of LCLS. Ultimately, a potential scheme to deliver a single-mode hard x-ray pulse is proposed by using a narrow bandpass crystal monochromator.

We present a novel method for measuring the duration of femtosecond x-ray pulses from self-amplified spontaneous emission free electron lasers by performing statistical analysis in the spectral domain. Analytical expressions of the spectral correlation function were derived in the linear regime to extract both the pulse duration and the spectrometer resolution. Numerical simulations confirmed that the method can be also used in the nonlinear regime. The method was demonstrated experimentally at the Linac Coherent Light Source by measuring pulse durations down to 13 fs FWHM.

Generation of femtosecond to sub-femtosecond pulses is attracting much attention in X-ray free-electron laser user community. One method is to use a slotted, emittance-spoiling foil which was proposed before (P. Emma et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 074801 (2004)) and has been widely used at the Linac Coherent Light Source. Direct experimental characterization of the slotted-foil performance was previously unfeasible due to a lack of appropriate diagnostics. With a recently installed X-band radio-frequency transverse deflector, we are able to characterize the electron bunch spoiling effect and X-ray pulse when using the slotted foil. We show that few-femtosecond X-ray pulses are generated with flexible control of the single-pulse duration or double-pulse separation with comparison to the theoretical model.

We propose a novel method to characterize the temporal duration and shape of femtosecond x-ray pulses in a free-electron laser (FEL) by measuring the time-resolved electron-beam energy loss and energy spread induced by the FEL process, with a transverse radio-frequency deflector located after the undulator. Its merits are simplicity, high resolution, wide diagnostic range, and non-invasive to user operation. When the system is applied to the Linac Coherent Light Source, the first hard x-ray free-electron laser in the world, it can provide single-shot measurements on the electron beam and x-ray pulses with a resolution on the order of 1-2 femtoseconds rms.

The linac coherent light source (LCLS) is a self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) free-electron laser (FEL) operating at fundamental photon energies from 0.5 to 10 keV. Characterization of the higher harmonics present in the FEL beam is important to users, for whom harder x rays can either extend the useful operating wavelength range or increase experimental backgrounds. We present measurements of the power in both the second and third harmonics, and compare the results to expectations from simulations. We also present studies of the transport of harmonics to the users, and the harmonic power as a function of electron beam quality.

Shot noise can affect the performance of free-electron lasers (FELs) by driving instabilities (e.g., the microbunching instability) or by competing with seeded density modulations. Recent papers have proposed suppressing shot noise to enhance FEL performance. In this paper we use a one-dimensional (1D) model to calculate the noise amplification from an energy modulation (e.g., electron interactions from space charge or undulator radiation) followed by a dispersive section. We show that, for a broad class of interactions, selecting the correct dispersive strength suppresses shot noise across a wide range of frequencies. The final noise level depends on the beam's energy spread and the properties of the interaction potential. We confirm and illustrate our analytical results with 1D simulations.

Seeding an electron bunch prior to compression simultaneously shifts the laser modulation to shorter wavelengths while decreasing the required modulation amplitude. The final x-ray wavelength is then tunable by controlling the compression factor with the rf phase. In this paper we describe a two-chicane scheme that allows for large modulation amplitudes, extending the method to photocathode beams with significant uncorrelated energy spreads. The downside of such compressed seeding is the need to maintain bunching across an extended accelerator region. We present analytical estimates and computer simulations to study tolerances for a sample lattice. We also note that transportation of the fine compressed modulation structure is helped by error self-correction in the second chicane, an effect that may be of more general interest.

The presence of microbunching instabilities due to the compression of high-brightness electron beams at existing and future X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) results in restrictions on the attainable lasing performance and renders beam imaging with optical transition radiation impossible. The instability can be suppressed by introducing additional energy spread, i.e., "heating" the electron beam, as demonstrated by the successful operation of the laser heater system at the Linac Coherent Light Source. The increased energy spread is typically tolerable for self-amplified spontaneous emission FELs but limits the effectiveness of advanced FEL schemes such as seeding. In this paper, we present a reversible electron beam heating system based on two transverse deflecting radio-frequency structures (TDSs) up and downstream of a magnetic bunch compressor chicane. The additional energy spread is introduced in the first TDS, which suppresses the microbunching instability, and then is eliminated in the second TDS. We show the feasibility of the microbunching gain suppression based on calculations and simulations including the effects of coherent synchrotron radiation. Acceptable electron beam and radio-frequency jitter are identified, and inherent options for diagnostics and on-line monitoring of the electron beam's longitudinal phase space are discussed., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams

There is growing interest in the generation and characterization of femtosecond and subfemtosecond pulses from linac-based free-electron lasers (FELs). In this report, following the method of Ricci and Smith [Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 3, 032801 (2000)PRABFM1098-440210.1103/PhysRevSTAB.3.032801], we investigate the measurement of the longitudinal bunch profile of an ultrashort electron bunch produced by these FELs. We show that this method can be applied in a straightforward manner at x-ray FEL facilities such as the Linac Coherent Light Source by slightly adjusting the second bunch compressor followed by running the bunch on an rf zero-crossing phase of the final linac. We find that the linac wakefield strongly perturbs the measurement, and through analysis show that it can be compensated in a simple way. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method and wakefield compensation through numerical simulations, including effects of coherent synchrotron radiation and longitudinal space charge. When used in conjunction with a high-resolution electron spectrometer, this method potentially reveals the temporal profile of the electron beam down to the femtosecond and subfemotsecond scale.

Over the past year, we have worked out a baseline design for PEP-X, as an ultra-low emittance storage ring that could reside in the existing 2.2-km PEPII tunnel. The design features a hybrid lattice with double bend achromat (DBA) cells in two arcs and theoretical minimum emittance (TME) cells in the remaining four arcs. Damping wigglers are used to reduce the horizontal emittance to 86 pm-rad at zero current for a 4.5 GeV electron beam. At a design current of 1.5 A, the horizontal emittance increases, due to intrabeam scattering, to 164 pm-rad when the vertical emittance is maintained at a diffraction limited 8 pm-rad. The baseline design will produce photon beams achieving a brightness of 10{sup 22} (ph/s/mm{sup 2}/mrad{sup 2}/0.1% BW) at 10 keV in a 3.5-m conventional planar undulator. Our study shows that an optimized lattice has adequate dynamic aperture, while accommodating a conventional off-axis injection system. In this report, we present the results of study, including the lattice properties, nonlinear dynamics, intra-beam scattering and Touschek lifetime, RF system, and collective instabilities. Finally, we discuss the possibility of partial lasing at soft X-ray wavelengths using a long undulator in a straight section.

It is well known that seeding can be used to produce narrow-bandwidth and fully coherent x-ray free-electron lasers (FELs). Self-seeding, which uses an extra undulator to generate the seed pulse, is perhaps one of the most promising methods to accomplish this. In the hard x-ray regime with high-energy electrons, this method requires a large magnetic chicane to match the path-length delay of the x-ray monochromator that selects a narrow bandwidth of radiation. Such a chicane not only takes a large footprint to build, but also may degrade the electron-beam qualities through incoherent and coherent synchrotron radiation. In this paper, we present an alternative two-bunch self-seeding scheme. The two bunches are precisely separated to match the x-ray delay of the monochromator and eliminate the need for a long, complex magnetic chicane. The spectrally filtered self-amplified spontaneous emission x-ray pulse produced by the first bunch is combined with the second electron bunch at the entrance of the second undulator and then amplified to the saturation level. We present start-to-end simulation results based on the linac coherent light source hard x-ray FEL and show that this method can produce a nearly fully coherent x-ray pulse at a few GW power level.

The E3 ubiquitin ligase Nedd4-2 regulates several ion transport proteins, including the epithelial Na(+) channel (ENaC). Nedd4-2 decreases apical membrane expression and activity of ENaC. Although it is subject to tight hormonal control, the mechanistic basis of Nedd4-2 regulation remains poorly understood. To characterize regulatory inputs to Nedd4-2 function, we screened for novel sites of Nedd4-2 phosphorylation using tandem mass spectrometry. Three of seven identified Xenopus Nedd4-2 Ser/Thr phosphorylation sites corresponded to previously identified target sites for SGK1, whereas four were novel, including Ser-293, which matched the consensus for a MAPK target sequence. Further in vitro and in vivo phosphorylation experiments revealed that Nedd4-2 serves as a target of JNK1, but not of p38 MAPK or ERK1/2. Additional rounds of tandem mass spectrometry identified two other phosphorylated residues within Nedd4-2, including Thr-899, which is present within the catalytic domain. Nedd4-2 with mutations at these sites had markedly inhibited JNK1-dependent phosphorylation, virtually no ENaC inhibitory activity, and significantly reduced ubiquitin ligase activity. These data identify phosphorylatable residues that activate Nedd4-2 and may work together with residues targeted by inhibitory kinases (e.g. SGK1 and protein kinase A) to govern Nedd4-2 regulation of epithelial ion transport.

The very bright electron beam required for an x-ray free-electron laser (FEL), such as the linac coherent light source (LCLS), is susceptible to a microbunching instability in the magnetic bunch compressors, prior to the FEL undulator. The uncorrelated electron energy spread in the LCLS can be increased by an order of magnitude to provide strong Landau damping against the instability without degrading the FEL performance. To this end, a ``laser-heater'' system has been installed in the LCLS injector, which modulates the energy of a 135-MeV electron bunch with an IR-laser beam in a short undulator, enclosed within a four-dipole chicane. In this paper, we report detailed measurements of laser-heater-induced energy spread, including the unexpected self-heating phenomenon when the laser energy is very low. We discuss the suppression of the microbunching instability with the laser heater and its impact on the x-ray FEL performance. We also present the analysis of these experimental results and develop a three-dimensional longitudinal space charge model to explain the self-heating effect.

We propose a scheme that combines the echo-enabled harmonic generation technique with the bunch compression and allows one to generate harmonic numbers of a few hundred in a microbunched beam through up-conversion of the frequency of an ultraviolet seed laser. A few-cycle intense laser is used to generate the required energy chirp in the beam for bunch compression and for selection of an attosecond x-ray pulse. Sending this beam through a short undulator results in an intense isolated attosecond x-ray pulse. Using a representative realistic set of parameters, we show that 1 nm x-ray pulse with peak power of a few hundred MW and duration as short as 20 attoseconds (FWHM) can be generated from a 200 nm ultraviolet seed laser. The proposed scheme may enable the study of electronic dynamics with a resolution beyond the atomic unit of time ($\ensuremath{\sim}24$ attoseconds) and may open a new regime of ultrafast sciences.

In order to reach the high peak current required for an x-ray free electron laser, two separate magnetic dipole chicanes are used in the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) accelerator to compress the electron bunch length in stages. In these bunch compressors, coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) can be emitted either by a short electron bunch or by any longitudinal density modulation that may be on the bunch. In this paper, we report detailed measurements of the CSR-induced energy loss and transverse emittance growth in these compressors. Good agreement is found between the experimental results and multi-particle tracking studies. We also describe direct observations of CSR at optical wavelengths and compare with analytical models based on beam microbunching.

We study effects of energy chirp on echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG). Analytical expressions are compared with numerical simulations for both harmonic and bunching factors. We also discuss the EEHG free-electron laser bandwidth increase due to an energy-modulated beam and its pulse length dependence on the electron energy chirp.

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) is an x-ray free-electron laser project presently in a commissioning phase at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. We report here on very low-emittance measurements made at low bunch charge, and a few femtosecond bunch length produced by the LCLS bunch compressors. Start-to-end simulations associated with these beam parameters show the possibilities of generating hundreds of GW at 1.5 A x-ray wavelength and nearly a single longitudinally coherent spike at 1.5 nm with 2-fs duration.

This is a more comprehensive report of the accelerator physics in the white paper 'PEP-X Light Source at SLAC'. A new light source called 'PEP-X' would reside in the 2.2-km PEP-II tunnel. It has a hybrid lattice where two of its six arcs contain DBA cells that provide a total of 30 straight sections for insertion device beam lines and the remaining arcs contain TME cells for an extremely low emittance. Using 90 meter damping wigglers the horizontal emittance at 4.5 GeV is further reduced to 0.1 nm-rad. Many collective effects including intra-beam scattering, Touschek lifetime, and fast ion instability are studied. We expect that PEP-X will produce photon beams having brightnesses near 10{sup 22} (ph/s/mm{sup 2}/mrad{sup 2}/0.1% BW) at 10 keV and 10{sup 21} at 35 keV.

It is usually assumed that the space charge effects in relativistic beams scale with the energy of the beam as γ^{-2}, where γ is the relativistic factor. We show that for a beam accelerated in the longitudinal direction there is an additional space charge effect in free space that scales as E/γ, where E is the accelerating field. This field has the same origin as the “electromagnetic mass of the electron” discussed in textbooks on electrodynamics. It keeps the balance between the kinetic energy of the beam and the energy of the electromagnetic field of the beam. We then consider the effect of this field on a beam generated in an rf gun and calculate the energy spread produced by this field in the beam.

Various methods have been proposed to condition an electron beam in order to reduce its emittance effect and to improve the short-wavelength free electron laser (FEL) performance. In this paper, we show that beam conditioning does not result in a complete elimination of the emittance effect in an alternating-gradient focusing FEL undulator. Using a one-dimensional model and a three-dimensional simulation code, we derive a criteria for the emittance limitation of a perfectly conditioned beam that depends on the focusing structure.

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) is a SASE X-ray free-electron laser project presently under construction at SLAC [1]. The injector section from RF photocathode gun through first bunch compressor chicane was installed during the fall of 2006. The first bunch compressor is located at 250 MeV and nominally compresses a 1-nC electron bunch from an rms length of about 1 mm to 0.2 mm. Transverse phase space and bunch length diagnostics are located immediately after the chicane. We present preliminary measurements and simulations of the longitudinal and transverse phase space after the chicane in various beam conditions, including extreme compression with micron-scale current spikes.

The ability to generate small transverse emittance is perhaps the main limiting factor for the performance of high-gain x-rays free-electron lasers (FELs). Noting that beams from an rf photocathode gun can have energy spread much smaller than required for efficient FEL interaction, we present a method to produce normalized transverse emittance at or below about 0.1 {micro}m, which will lead to a significantly shorter length undulator as well as a lower electron beam energy for an x-ray FEL project. The beam manipulation consists of producing an unequal partition of the initially equal emittances into two dissimilar emittances by a flat beam technique and exchanging the larger transverse emittance with a small longitudinal emittance. We study various issues involved in the manipulation. In particular, a new emittance exchange optics we found enables an exact emittance exchange necessary for this scheme.

The optical klystron enhancement to self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) free electron lasers (FELs) is studied in theory and in simulations. In contrast to a seeded FEL, the optical klystron gain in a SASE FEL is not sensitive to any phase mismatch between the radiation and the microbunched electron beam. The FEL performance with the addition of four optical klystrons located at the undulator long breaks in the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) shows significant improvement if the uncorrelated energy spread at the undulator entrance can be controlled to a very small level. In addition, FEL saturation at shorter x-ray wavelengths (around $1.0\text{ }\AA{}$) within the LCLS undulator length becomes possible. We also discuss the application of the optical klystron in a compact x-ray FEL design that employs relatively low electron beam energy together with a shorter-period undulator.

Maintaining a stable bunch length and peak current is a critical step for the reliable operation of a SASE based x-ray source. In the LCLS, relative bunch length monitors (BLM) right after both bunch compressors are proposed based on the coherent radiation generated by the short electron bunch. Due to its diagnostic setup, the standard far field synchrotron radiation formula and well-developed numerical codes do not apply for the analysis of the BLM performance. In this paper, we develop a calculation procedure to take into account the near field effect, the effect of a short bending magnet, and the diffraction effect of the radiation transport optics. We find the frequency response of the BLM after the first LCLS bunch compressor and discuss its expected performance.

The optical klystron enhancement to self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) free electron lasers (FELs) is studied in theory and in simulations. In contrast to a seeded FEL, the optical klystron gain in a SASE FEL is not sensitive to any phase mismatch between the radiation and the microbunched electron beam. The FEL performance with the addition of four optical klystrons located at the undulator long breaks in the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) shows significant improvement if the uncorrelated energy spread at the undulator entrance can be controlled to a very small level. In addition, FEL saturation at shorter x-ray wavelengths (around 1.0 A) within the LCLS undulator length becomes possible. We also discuss the application of the optical klystron in a compact x-ray FEL design that employs relatively low electron beam energy together with a shorter-period undulator.

A self-consistent theory of a free electron laser (FEL) with slowly varying beam and undulator parameters is developed using the WKB approximation. The theory is applied to study the performance of a self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) FEL when the electron beam energy varies along the undulator as would be caused by vacuum pipe wakefields and/or when the undulator strength parameter is tapered in the small signal regime before FEL saturation. We find that a small energy gain or an equivalent undulator taper slightly reduces the power gain length in the exponential growth regime and can increase the saturated SASE power by about a factor of 2. Power degradation away from the optimal performance can be estimated based upon knowledge of the SASE bandwidth. The analytical results, which agree with numerical simulations, are used to optimize the undulator taper and to evaluate wakefield effects.

Longitudinal phase space properties of a photoinjector beam are important in many areas of high-brightness beam applications such as bunch compression, transverse to-longitudinal emittance exchange, and high-gain free-electron lasers. In this paper, we discuss both the rf and the space charge contributions to the uncorrelated energy spread of the beam generated from a laser-driven rf gun. We compare analytical expressions for the uncorrelated energy spread and the longitudinal emittance with numerical simulations and recent experimental results.

We propose a significant enhancement of the electron peak current entering a SASE undulator by inducing an energy modulation in an upstream wiggler magnet via resonant interaction with an optical laser, followed by microbunching of the energy-modulated electrons at the accelerator exit. This current enhancement allows a reduction of the FEL gain length. The x-ray output consists of a series of uniformly spaced spikes, each spike being temporally coherent. The duration of this series is controlled by the laser pulse and in principle can be narrowed down to just a single, ~;200-attosecond spike. Given potentially absolute temporal synchronization of the x-ray spikes to the energy-modulating laser pulse, this scheme naturally makes pump-probe experiments available to SASE FEL's. We also study various detrimental effects related to the high electron peak current.

We present the experimental investigation of a collective effect driving strong modulation in the longitudinal phase space of a high-brightness electron beam. The measured beam energy spectrum was analyzed in order to reveal the main parameters of modulation. The experimental results were compared with a model of space-charge oscillations in the beam longitudinal phase space. The measurements and analysis allowed us to determine the range of the parameters of the observed effect on the modulation dynamics and illustrate its potential impact on short-wavelength free electron laser performance.

We have performed a single-shot, time-resolved measurement of the output field of a SASE FEL using the frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) technique. The measurement reveals the phase and the amplitude of the SASE output as functions of time and frequency, hence enables us to perform a full characterization of the SASE FEL output. We examined both the single-shot field evolution as well as the statistics over multiple shots on the phase and intensity evolution.

Previous studies of the (Coherent Synchrotron Radiation) CSR induced longitudinal instability have been made using the CSR impedance due to dipole magnets, however, many storage rings include long wigglers where a large fraction of the synchrotron radiation is emitted. In this paper, the instability due to the CSR impedance from a wiggler is studied assuming a large wiggler parameter K. The primary consideration is a low frequency microwave-like instability, which arises near the pipe cut-off frequency. Finally, the optimization of the relative fraction of damping due to the wiggler systems is discussed for the damping rings in future linear colliders.

The design of the linac coherent light source (LCLS) requires two-stage bunch compression for stability against timing and charge jitters. Coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) induced in these bunch compressors can drive a microbunching instability that may degrade the beam brightness. In this paper, we study effects of the longitudinal wakefield in the accelerator on this instability. We show that significant energy modulation can be accumulated in the linac through the geometrical wakefield and can enhance the CSR microbunching in these compressors. Analytical calculations are compared with numerical simulations to evaluate the gain of microbunching for the entire LCLS accelerator system

A microbunching instability driven by longitudinal space charge, coherent synchrotron radiation, and linac wakefields is studied for the linac coherent light source (LCLS) accelerator system. Since the uncorrelated (local) energy spread of electron beams generated from a photocathode rf gun is very small, the microbunching gain may be large enough to significantly amplify rf-gun generated modulations or even shot-noise fluctuations of the electron beam. The uncorrelated energy spread can be increased by an order of magnitude to provide strong Landau damping against the instability without degrading the free-electron laser performance. We study different damping options in the LCLS and discuss an effective laser heater to minimize the impact of the instability on the quality of the electron beam.

We calculate the performance of possible Advanced Photon Source (APS) {gamma}-ray sources for applications in nuclear physics research. For the APS storage ring, it is possible to generate tagged {gamma}-ray photon fluxes of 10{sup 8}, 0.7 x 10{sup 8}, and 0.3 x 10{sup 8} photons/s at photon energies of 1, 1.7, and 2.8 GeV, respectively. For untagged photons, fluxes higher than 10{sup 8} photons/s are possible for those energies. For the injection booster, an untagged {gamma}-ray photon flux up to 10{sup 8} photons/s at energy ranging from 5 MeV to 1 GeV is possible. This can be achieved using off-the-shelf commercial Ti:Sa laser systems. The photon fluxes predicted here are in general one to two orders of magnitude higher than facilities with similar photon energies.

A study of the potential for the development of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) beyond the specifications of the baseline design is presented. These future developments include delivery of X-ray pulses in the 1 fs regime, extension of the spectral range, increase of the FEL power, exploitation of the spontaneous emission, and a more flexible time structure. As this potential is exploited, the LCLS can maintain its role as a world-leading instrument for many years beyond its commissioning in 2008 and initial operation as the world's first X-ray free-electron laser.

Coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) can play an important role by not only increasing the energy spread and emittance of a beam, but also leading to a potential instability. Previous studies of the CSR induced longitudinal instability were carried out for the CSR impedance due to dipole magnets. However, many storage rings include long wigglers where a large fraction of the synchrotron radiation is emitted. This includes high-luminosity factories such as DAPHNE, PEP-II, KEK-B, and CESR-C as well as the damping rings of future linear colliders. In this paper, the instability due to the CSR impedance from a wiggler is studied assuming a large wiggler parameter $K$. The primary consideration is a low-frequency microwavelike instability, which arises near the pipe cutoff frequency. Detailed results are presented on the growth rate and threshold for the damping rings of several linear collider designs. The different scaling between the wiggler CSR impedance and the dipole CSR impedance suggests an optimization for the damping ring design.

We propose a novel method to generate femtosecond and subfemtosecond photon pulses in a free-electron laser by selectively spoiling the transverse emittance of the electron beam. Its merits are simplicity and ease of implementation. When the system is applied to the Linac Coherent Light Source, it can provide x-ray pulses the order of 1 fs in duration containing about 10(10) transversely coherent photons.