Electron beam transfer line design for plasma driven Free Electron Lasers

Plasma driven particle accelerators represent the future of compact accelerating machines and Free Electron Lasers are going to benefit from these new technologies. One of the main issue of this new approach to FEL machines is the design of the transfer line needed to match of the electron-beam with the magnetic undulators. Despite the reduction of the chromaticity of plasma beams is one of the main goals, the target of this line is to be effective even in cases of beams with a considerable value of chromaticity. The method here explained is based on the code GIOTTO [1] that works using a homemade genetic algorithm and that is capable of finding optimal matching line layouts directly using a full 3D tracking code.Comment: 9 Pages, 4 Figures. A related poster was presented at EAAC 201

Plasma boosted electron beams for driving Free Electron Lasers

In this paper, we report results of simulations, in the framework of both EuPRAXIA \cite{Walk2017} and EuPRAXIA@SPARC\_LAB \cite{Ferr2017} projects, aimed at delivering a high brightness electron bunch for driving a Free Electron Laser (FEL) by employing a plasma post acceleration scheme. The boosting plasma wave is driven by a tens of \SI{}{\tera\watt} class laser and doubles the energy of an externally injected beam up to \GeV{1}. The injected bunch is simulated starting from a photoinjector, matched to plasma, boosted and finally matched to an undulator, where its ability to produce FEL radiation is verified to yield O(\num{e11}) photons per shot at \nm{2.7}.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB: the high-brightness RF photo-injector layout proposal

At EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB, the unique combination of an advanced high-brightness RF injector and a plasma-based accelerator will drive a new multi-disciplinary user-facility. The facility, that is currently under study at INFN-LNF Laboratories (Frascati, Italy) in synergy with the EuPRAXIA collaboration, will operate the plasma-based accelerator in the external injection configuration. Since in this configuration the stability and reproducibility of the acceleration process in the plasma stage is strongly influenced by the RF-generated electron beam, the main challenge for the RF injector design is related to generating and handling high quality electron beams. In the last decades of R&D activity, the crucial role of high-brightness RF photo-injectors in the fields of radiation generation and advanced acceleration schemes has been largely established, making them effective candidates to drive plasma-based accelerators as pilots for user facilities. An RF injector consisting in a high-brightness S-band photo-injector followed by an advanced X-band linac has been proposed for the EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB project. The electron beam dynamics in the photo-injector has been explored by means of simulations, resulting in high-brightness, ultra-short bunches with up to 3 kA peak current at the entrance of the advanced X-band linac booster. The EuPRAXIA@SPARC_LAB high-brightness photo-injector is described here together with performance optimisation and sensitivity studies aiming to actual check the robustness and reliability of the desired working point.Comment: 5 pages,5 figures, EAAC201

High intensity X/ γ photon beams for nuclear physics and photonics

In this manuscript we review the challenges of Compton back-scattering sources in advancing photon beam performances in the1−20MeVenergy range, underlining the design criteria bringing tomaximum spectral luminosity and briefly describing the main achieve-ments in conceiving and developing new devices (multi-bunch RF cav-ities and Laser recirculators) for the case of ELI-NP Gamma BeamSystem (ELI-NP-GBS)

Quadrupole scan emittance measurements for the ELI-NP compton gamma source

The high brightness electron LINAC of the Compton Gamma Source at the ELI Nuclear Physics facility in Roma- nia is accelerating a train of 32 bunches with a nominal total charge of 250 pC and nominal spacing of 16 ns . To achieve the design gamma flux, all the bunches along the train must have the designed Twiss parameters. Beam sizes are mea- sured with optical transition radiation monitors, allowing a quadrupole scan for Twiss parameters measurements. Since focusing the whole bunch train on the screen may lead to permanent screen damage, we investigate non-conventional scans such as scans around a maximum of the beam size or scans with a controlled minimum spot size. This paper discusses the implementation issues of such a technique in the actual machine layou