Electron-Beam Conditioning by Thomson Scattering

A method is proposed for conditioning electron beams via Thomson scattering. The conditioning provides a quadratic correlation between the electron energy deviation and the betatron amplitude of the electrons, which results in enhanced gain in free-electron lasers. Quantum effects imply conditioning must occur at high laser fluence and moderate electron energy. Conditioning of x-ray free-electron lasers should be achievable with present laser technology, leading to significant size and cost reductions of these large-scale facilities.

Figure 1

Schematic of beam conditioning via Thomson backscattering. Two Gaussian laser pulses provide the nonlinear correlation between the energy deviation and the betatron amplitude.