Advanced metaheuristic algorithms for laser optimization in optical accelerator technologies

Abstract

Lasers are among the most important experimental tools for user facilities, including synchrotron radiation and free electron lasers (FEL). In the synchrotron radiation field, lasers are widely used for experiments with Pump-Probe techniques. Especially for X-ray-FELs, lasers play important roles as seed light sources or photocathode-illuminating light sources to generate a high-brightness electron bunch. For future accelerators, laser-based techonologies such as electro-optic (EO) sampling to measure ultra-short electron bunches and optical-fiber-based femtosecond timing systems have been intensively developed in the last decade. Therefore, controls and optimizations of laser pulse characteristics are strongly required for many kinds of experiments and improvement of accelerator systems. However, people believe that lasers should be tuned and customized for each requirement manually by experts. This makes it difficult for laser systems to be part of the common accelerator infrastructure. Automatic laser tuning requires sophisticated algorithms, and the metaheuristic algorithm is one of the best solutions. The metaheuristic laser tuning system is expected to reduce the human effort and time required for laser preparations. I have shown some successful results on a metaheuristic algorithm based on a genetic algorithm to optimize spatial (transverse) laser profiles, and a hill-climbing method extended with a fuzzy set theory to choose one of the best laser alignments automatically for each machine requirement.