• L. Giannessi, S. Spampinati
  ENEA C.R. Frascati, Frascati (Roma)
• P. Musumeci
  Universita di Roma I La Sapienza, Roma

The advances in laser technology have made available very short and intense laser pulses which can be used to seed a high gain single pass Free-Electron Laser (FEL) amplifier. With these seed pulses, a regime of the FEL interaction where the radiation evolution is simultaneously dominated by non-linear effects (saturation) and time-dependent effects (slippage) can be explored. This regime is characterized by the propagation of a solitary wave-like pulse where the power of the optical wave grows quadratically with time, its pulse length decreases and the spectral bandwidth increases. We analyze the interplay between the field and particles dynamics of this propagation regime which was studied before and termed superradiance. Furthermore we analyze the properties of the strong higher order harmonics emission from this wave and its behaviour when propagating in a cascade FEL. The superradiant pulse is indeed capable of passing through the stages of a cascade FEL and to regenerate itself at the wavelength of the higher order harmonic. The optical pulse obtained is shorter than a cooperation length and is strongly chirped in frequency, thus allowing further longitudinal compression down to the attosecond time-scale.

• L. Giannessi, M.C. Carpanese, F. Ciocci, G. Dattoli, A. Dipace, A. Doria, G.P. Gallerano, E. Giovenale, G. Parisi, M. Quattromini, A. Renieri, C. Ronsivalle, E. Sabia, S. Spampinati, I.P. Spassovsky
  ENEA C.R. Frascati, Frascati (Roma)
• D. Alesini, M.E. Biagini, A. Drago, M. Ferrario, V. Fusco, A. Ghigo, B. Spataro, C. Vaccarezza, C. Vicario
  INFN/LNF, Frascati (Roma)
• M. Bougeard, B. Carre, M.-E. Couprie, D. Garzella, M. LABAT, G. Lambert, H. Merdji, P. Salieres
  CEA/Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette
• M. Mattioli, P. Musumeci, M. Petrarca
  Universita di Roma I La Sapienza, Roma
• M.  Migliorati, L. Palumbo
  Rome University La Sapienza, Roma
• M. Nisoli, S. Stagira, S. de Silvestri
  Politecnico/Milano, Milano
• L. P. Poletto, G. T. Tondello
  Univ. degli Studi di Padova, Padova

Funding: Work supported by the EU Commission in the sixth framework programme, contract no. 011935 – EUROFEL.

Sources based on high order harmonics generated in gas with high power Ti:Sa lasers pulses represent promising candidates as seed for FEL amplifiers for several reasons, as spatial and temporal coherence, wavelength tunability and spectral range, which extends down to the 10(-9)m wavelength scale. This communication is devoted to the description of a research work plan that will be implemented at the SPARC FEL facility in the framework of the 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 crystal (400nm and 266 nm) and in gas (266nm, 160nm, 114nm) from a high intensity Ti:Sa laser pulse.

• T. Watanabe, D.F.L. Liu, J.B. Murphy, J. Rose, T.V. Shaftan, Y. Shen, T. Tsang, X.J. Wang, L.-H. Yu
  BNL, Upton, Long Island, New York
• L. Giannessi, S. Spampinati
  ENEA C.R. Frascati, Frascati (Roma)
• P. Musumeci
  Universita di Roma I La Sapienza, Roma
• S. Reiche
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California

Funding: Work suppoted by the Brookhaven National Lab and Office of Naval Research

The SDL facility at BNL[1] is an excellent platform to explore some of the recent ideas related to superradiance in a seeded single pass FEL. At the SDL facility there is an operating FEL with a Ti:Sapphire seed laser and a high brightness e-beam with an energy up to 250 MeV. Seeding may be realized with pulses shorter than the e-beam bunch length to induce the superradiant regime. A status report concerning this experiment will be presented.

[1] A. Doyuran et al., PRSTAB, Vol. 7, 050701 (2004).