Free-electron lasers (FELs) are a unique source of light, particularly in the x-ray domain. After the success of FELs based on conventional acceleration using radio-frequency cavities, an important challenge is the development of FELs based on electron bunching accelerated by a laser wakefield accelerator (LWFA). However, the present LWFA electron bunch properties do not permit use directly for a significant FEL amplification. It is known that longitudinal decompression of electron beams delivered by state-of-the-art LWFA eases the FEL process. We propose here a second order transverse beam manipulation turning the large inherent transverse chromatic emittances of LWFA beams into direct FEL gain advantage. Numerical simulations are presented showing that this beam manipulation can further enhance by orders of magnitude the peak power of the radiation.g 0 with P 0 the input noise power coupled into the dominant amplified mode and L g the gain length given by:

With gigaelectron-volts per centimetre energy gains and femtosecond electron beams, laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) is a promising candidate for applications, such as ultrafast electron diffraction, multistaged colliders and radiation sources (betatron, compton, undulator, free electron laser). However, for some of these applications, the beam performance, for example, energy spread, divergence and shot-to-shot fluctuations, need a drastic improvement. Here, we show that, using a dedicated transport line, we can mitigate these initial weaknesses. We demonstrate that we can manipulate the beam longitudinal and transverse phase-space of the presently available LWFA beams. Indeed, we separately correct orbit mis-steerings and minimise dispersion thanks to specially designed variable strength quadrupoles, and select the useful energy range passing through a slit in a magnetic chicane. Therefore, this matched electron beam leads to the successful observation of undulator synchrotron radiation after an 8 m transport path. These results pave the way to applications demanding in terms of beam quality.

The recent advances in developing compact laser plasma accelerators that deliver high quality electron beams in a more reliable way offer the possibility to consider their use in designing a compact free electron laser (FEL). Because of the particularity of these beams (especially concerning the divergence and the energy spread), specific electron beam handling is proposed in order to achieve FEL amplification.

The laser-plasma accelerator (LPA) presently provides electron beams with a typical current of a few kA, a bunch length of a few fs, energy in the few hundred MeV to several GeV range, a divergence of typically 1 mrad, an energy spread of the order of 1%, and a normalized emittance of the order of π.mm.mrad. One of the first applications could be to use these beams for the production of radiation: undulator emission has been observed but the rather large energy spread (1%) and divergence (1 mrad) prevent straightforward free-electron laser (FEL) amplification. An adequate beam manipulation through the transport to the undulator is then required. The key concept proposed here relies on an innovative electron beam longitudinal and transverse manipulation in the transport towards an undulator: a 'demixing' chicane sorts the electrons according to their energy and reduces the spread from 1% to one slice of a few ‰ and the effective transverse size is maintained constant along the undulator (supermatching) by a proper synchronization of the electron beam focusing with the progress of the optical wave. A test experiment for the demonstration of FEL amplification with an LPA is under preparation. Electron beam transport follows different steps with strong focusing with permanent magnet quadrupoles of variable strength, a demixing chicane with conventional dipoles, and a second set of quadrupoles for further focusing in the undulator. The FEL simulations and the progress of the preparation of the experiment are presented.

The intense Coherent Synchrotron Radiation emitted in the Terahertz range by relativistic electron bunches circulating in a storage ring is an attractive source for spectroscopy. Its stability is related to the electron bunch dynamics, and can exhibit a bursting behavior resulting from the irregular presence of micro-structures in the bunch. We evidence here the existence of two thresholds in the electron bunch spatio-temporal dynamics, associated with different levels of Terahertz signal fluctuations, with increasing number of electrons. The first threshold indicates the presence of micro-structures drifting in the bunch profile, and the second one appears when those micro-structures are strong enough to persist after about half a revolution period of the electronbunch in the phase-space. Their prediction thanks to numerical simulations are confirmed by experiments at the synchrotron SOLEIL.

High gradient quadrupoles are necessary for different applications such as laser plasma acceleration, colliders, and diffraction limited light sources. Permanent magnet quadrupoles provide a higher field strength and compactness than conventional electro-magnets. An original design of permanent magnet based quadrupole (so-called "QUAPEVA"), composed of a Halbach ring placed in the center with a bore radius of 6 mm and surrounded by four permanent magnet cylinders capable of providing a gradient of 210 T/m, is presented. The design of the QUAPEVAs, including magnetic simulation modeling, and mechanical issues are reported. Magnetic measurements of seven systems of different lengths are presented and confirmed the theoretical expectations. The variation of the magnetic center while changing the gradient strength is +/- 10 micrometer. A triplet of three QUAPEVA magnets are used to focus a beam with large energy spread and high divergence that is generated by Laser Plasma Acceleration source for a free electron laser demonstration.Comment: 4 pages, 9 figure

We present the first high resolution (10(-3) cm(-1)) interferometric measurements in the 200-750 GHz range using coherent synchrotron radiation, achieved with a low momentum compaction factor. The effect of microbunching on spectra is shown, depending on the bunch current. A high signal-to-noise ratio is reached thanks to an artifact correction system based on a double detection scheme. Combined to the broad emitted spectral range and high flux (up to 10(5) times the incoherent radiation), this study demonstrates that coherent synchrotron radiation can now be used for stability-demanding applications, such as gas-phase studies of unstable molecules.

This article describes an experimental determination of the correlated, longitudinal phase-space electron distribution produced by a radio frequency photoinjector. Measurements of the electron beam energy spectra and pulse shapes are analyzed to deduce the longitudinal phase space at the exit of the photoinjector rf cavity. Data were obtained for micro-pulse charges of 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 nC, and show different phenomena in the low-charge and high-charge regimes. At low beam charge, the uncorrelated energy spread increases with increasing charge density, while rf bunching appears to cancel any pulse-length elongation due to the space-charge forces. At high beam charge, the data show that the micro-pulse separates into three distinct sub-pulses of nearly equal charge, and with a temporal separation proportional to the relativistic plasma frequency. These effects are compared with the space-charge generated instabilities and virtual-cathode phenomena observed in lower voltage devices. The implications that these results have upon the fundamental limits of beam brightness and magnetic pulse compression limitations are discussed.