Beam Dynamics Studies of the Transverse Gradient Undulator and Its Application to Suppression of Microbunching Instability

Abstract

A transverse gradient undulator (TGU) which was initially proposed for high gain free electron lasers (FELs) driven by electron beams with relatively large energy spread, can be extended to the application of beam dynamics, such as phase-merging enhanced harmonic generation FEL and suppression of microbunching instability. In this contribution we present beam dynamics studies of the TGU, analyze the resulting focusing and dispersion, and discuss the effects of an additional corrector on the TGU. As an application to beam dynamics, we show a feasible transport system based on the TGU as a reversible electron beam heater to suppress the microbunching instability of the electron beam.