Reducing the group velocity of coherent radiation for upconverting the single-cycle electron density modulation

Abstract

We present an interesting property of broadband coherent radiation emitted by a single microbunch, or a single-cycle density modulation in an electron beam passing through an undulator, and describe its application to a frequency upconversion of the single-cycle modulation. This is based on the fact that a monocycle pulse is generated by focusing the coherent radiation with a unit-magnification optical system, which propagates without diffraction like the Bessel beam, at a reduced group velocity equal to the average electron velocity in the undulator. Calculations show that a single microbunch with a length of 46-nm formed in a 2-GeV and 2-kA electron beam can be upconverted to a 4-nm long microbunch through interaction with focused coherent radiation.