V. Fusco

The SPARC project: a high-brightness electron beam source at LNF to drive a SASE-FEL experiment

Abstract The Project Sorgente Pulsata e Amplificata di Radiazione Coerente (SPARC), proposed by a collaboration among ENEA–INFN–CNR–Universita’ di Tor Vergata–INFM–ST, was recently approved by the Italian Government and will be built at LNF. The aim of the project is to promote an R&D activity oriented to the development of a coherent ultra-brilliant X-ray source in Italy. This collaboration has identified a program founded on two main issues: the generation of ultra-high peak brightness electron beams and of resonant higher harmonics in the SASE-FEL process, as presented in this paper.

Conceptual design of a high-brightness linac for soft X-ray SASE-FEL source

Abstract FELs based on SASE are believed to be powerful tools to explore the frontiers of basic sciences, from physics to chemistry to biology. Intense R&D programs have started in the USA and Europe in order to understand the SASE physics and to prove the feasibility of these sources. The allocation of considerable resources in the Italian National Research Plan (PNR) brought about the formation of a CNR–ENEA–INFN–University of Roma “Tor Vergata” study group. A conceptual design study has been developed and possible schemes for linac sources have been investigated, leading to the SPARX proposal. We report in this paper the results of a preliminary start to end simulation concerning one option we are considering based on an S-band normal conducting linac with high-brightness photoinjector integrated in an RF compressor.

The Project Plasmonx for Plasma Acceleration Experiments and A Thomson X-Ray Source at SPARC

We present the status of the project PLASMONX, recently approved by INFN. This project, based on a collaboration between INFN and CNR-IPCF, aims at a long term upgrade of the SPARC system with the goal to develop at LNF an integrated facility for advanced beam-laser-plasma research in the field of advanced acceleration techniques and ultra-bright X-ray radiation sources and related applications. The project, in its first phase, foresees the development at LNF of a High Intensity Laser Laboratory (HILL) whose main component is a 100 TW-class Ti: Sa laser system synchronized to the SPARC photo-injector. Experiments of self-injection and acceleration of electrons into laser driven plasma waves will be conducted at HILL-LNF, early in this first project phase. Eventually an additional beam line will be built in the SPARC bunker in order to transport the SPARC electron beam at an interaction point, where a final focus system will allow to conduct experiments either of laser-beam co-propagation in plasma waves for high gradient acceleration, or experiments of laser-beam head-on collisions to develop a Thomson source of bright ultra-short X-ray radiation pulses, with X-ray energies tunable in the range 20 to 1000 keV and pulse duration from 30 fs to 20 ps. Preliminary simulations of plasma acceleration with self-injection are illustrated, as well as external injection of the SPARC electron beam.

The SPARC/X SASE-FEL Projects

SPARC and SPARX are two different initiatives toward an Italian Free Electron Laser ~FEL! source operating in the Self Amplified Spontaneous Emission ~SASE! mode, in which several national research institutions are involved. SPARC is a high gain FEL project devoted to provide a source of visible and VUV radiation while exploiting the SASE mechanism. An advanced Photo-Injector system, emittance compensating RF-gun plus a 150 MeV Linac, will inject a high quality e-beam into the undulator to generate high brilliance FEL radiation in the visible region at the fundamental wavelength, ~;500 nm!. The production of flat top drive laser beams, high peak current bunches, and emittance compensation scheme will be investigated together with the generation of higher harmonic radiation in the VUV region. SPARX is the direct evolution of such a high gain SASE FEL toward the 13.5 and 1.5 nm operating wavelengths, at 2.5 GeV. To get the required value for the bunch peak current, Ipeak ’ 2.5 kA, the “hybrid” scheme, RF-compression stage plus magnetic chicane, is analyzed and compared with the more standard double stage of magnetic compression. The two options are reviewed considering the tolerance to the drive laser pulse phase jitter.

Beam dynamics studies for the SPARC project

The aim of the SPARC project, is to promote an R&D activity oriented to the development of a high brightness photoinjector to drive SASE-FEL experiments. We discuss in this paper the status of the beam dynamics simulation activities.

Design and characterization of a movable emittance meter for low-energy electron beams

In order to characterize and optimize the beam emittance compensation scheme [L. Serafini and J. B. Rosenzweig, Phys. Rev. E 55, 7565 (1997)] of the Sorgente Pulsata Autoamplificata di Radiazione Coerente project [D. Alesini et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 507, 345 (2003)] high brightness preinjector a system to accurately measure the beam rms emittance evolution downstream of the rf gun has been developed. Since in a space charge dominated beam the quadrupole-scan method is not applicable, a movable emittance measurement device has been built based on the pepper-pot technique. The device consists of a double system of horizontal and vertical slit arrays and a downstream screen, all installed on a longitudinally movable support equipped with bellows and spanning the ≈1.2m long drift space between gun and first accelerating section. The system allows the measuring of the beam rms emittance all along the spanned region so as to accurately reconstruct its evolution along the beam trajectory. More...

Code comparison for simulations of photo-injectors

RF photo-cathode injectors constitute one of the key components of many future single pass FEL based synchrotron radiation sources. The possibility of reaching very high brightness beams had been anticipated by using various simulations tools. Several experiments have proven that the 1mm.mrad normalized projected emittance for 1 nC, 10 ps pulses is within reach. For optimizing these photo-injectors, a first search of parameters is efficiently performed with HOMDYN. Further refinement in the tuning is usually obtained using a multi-particle tracking code such as ASTRA, PARMELA or BEAMPATH. In this paper, we compare results from HOMDYN, ASTRA, PARMELA, and BEAMPATH for the cases of an S-Band photo-injector. Limitations in their accuracy and differences between the codes are discussed. 1 MOTIVATION Many codes are available for studying the dynamics of intense electron bunches at low energy in the space charge dominated regime. Newcomers in the field often ask which code to use to start studying a system based on a photo-cathode RF gun. In this paper, we compare codes which use five very different algorithms to compute the space charge: a code which solves the envelope equation HOMDYN [1], a Cloud-In-Cell (CIC) code BEAMPATH [2], a ring based algorithm PARMELA[3] and ASTRA[4], a fast Particle-In-Cell (PIC) algorithm for PARMELA spch3d and and a Lienard-Wiechert potentials approach for TREDI [5]. The test problem studied consists in an S-Band RF gun, a compensation solenoid and a drift. Quantities of interest such as rms beam size, emittance bunch length could be matched for all those codes when optimal running conditions.

The Sparc project: a high brightness electron beam source at LNF to drive a SASE-FEL experiment

The Project SPARC (Sorgente Pulsata e Amplificata di Radiazione Coerente), proposed by a collaboration among ENEA-INFN-CNR-Universitadi Roma Tor Vergata- INFM-ST, was recently funded by the Italian Government. The aim of the project is to promote an R&D activity oriented to the development of a coherent ultra-brilliant X-ray source in Italy (SPARX proposal (1)). The SPARC collaboration identified a program based on two main issues: the generation of ultra-high peak brightness electron beams and experimental study of SASE-FEL process with generation of resonant higher harmonics. The SPARC project is being designed in order to encompass the construction of an advanced photo- injector producing a 150-200 MeV beam to drive a SASE-FEL in the optical range. The machine will be built at LNF, inside an underground bunker: it is comprised of an rf gun driven by a Ti:Sa laser, injecting into three SLAC accelerating sections. We foresee conducting investigations on the emittance correction(2) and on the rf compression techniques(3), which are expected to increase the peak current achievable at the injector exit up to kA level, with proper preservation of the transverse emittance. Although the system is expected to drive a FEL experiment, it can be used also to investigate beam physics issues like surface-roughness-induced wake fields, bunch-length measurements in the sub-ps range, emittance degradation in magnetic compressors due to CSR, and Compton backscattering production of sub-ps X-ray pulses.

Experimental results with the SPARC emittance-meter

The SPARC project foresees the realization of a high brightness photo-injector to produce a 150-200 MeV electron beam to drive a SASE-FEL in the visible light. As a first stage of the commissioning a complete characterization of the photoinjector has been accomplished with a detailed study of the emittance compensation process downstream the gun-solenoid system with a novel beam diagnostic device, called emittance meter. In this paper we report the results obtained so far including the first experimental observation of the double emittance minimum effect on which is based the optimised matching with the SPARC linac.

Future seeding experiments at SPARC

This communication describes the research work plan that is under implementation at the SPARC FEL facility in the framework of the DS4 EUROFEL programme. The main goal of the collaboration is to study and test the amplification and the FEL harmonic generation process of an input seed signal obtained as higher order harmonics generated both in crystals (400 nm and 266 nm) and in gases (266 nm, 160 nm, 114 nm). The SPARC FEL can be con-figured to test several cascaded FEL layouts that will be briefly analysed.