Abstract
Utilizing laser-driven plasma accelerators (LPAs) as a high-quality electron beam source is a promising approach to significantly downsize the x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) facility. A multi-GeV LPA beam can be generated in several-centimeter acceleration distance, with a high peak current and a low transverse emittance, which will considerably benefit a compact FEL design. However, the large initial angular divergence and energy spread make it challenging to transport the beam and realize FEL radiation. In this paper, a novel design of beam transport system is proposed to maintain the superior features of the LPA beam and a transverse gradient undulator (TGU) is also adopted as an effective energy spread compensator to generate high-brilliance FEL radiation. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations are presented based on a demonstration experiment with an electron energy of 380 MeV and a radiation wavelength of 30 nm.
Highlights
In recent years, the development of x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) [1] driven by a conventional large-scale radio-frequency accelerator becomes increasingly mature, especially with the great success of several operational facilities around the world [2,3,4,5]
The laser-driven plasma accelerator (LPA) beam has unique properties that the peak current is up to tens of kA, the pulse duration is on the order of femtosecond, and the normalized transverse emittance is below 1 μm
We have proposed a compact scheme of the LPA beam transport system combining with the transverse gradient undulator (TGU) radiator to achieve significant FEL gain, in which both theoretical analysis and numerical simulations were performed to demonstrate its validity
Summary
The development of x-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) [1] driven by a conventional large-scale radio-frequency accelerator becomes increasingly mature, especially with the great success of several operational facilities around the world [2,3,4,5]. The laser-driven plasma accelerator (LPA) beam has unique properties that the peak current is up to tens of kA, the pulse duration is on the order of femtosecond, and the normalized transverse emittance is below 1 μm. With these features, some great efforts have been made by several teams to pave the road to the LPA-driven FEL facilities [19,20,21]. In the FEL community, a transverse gradient undulator (TGU) was proposed to minimize the energy spread effect leading to an improvement of FEL gain and radiation power substantially [25].
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