Direct Observation of Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Short Electron Bunches in Storage Rings

C. Évain, Eléonore Roussel, Marc Le Parquier, C. Szwaj, M.-A. Tordeux, Jean‐Blaise Brubach, L. Manceron, P. Roy, S. Bielawski

Abstract

In recent synchrotron radiation facilities, the use of short (picosecond) electron bunches is a powerful method for producing giant pulses of terahertz coherent synchrotron radiation. Here we report on the first direct observation of these pulse shapes with a few picoseconds resolution, and of their dynamics over a long time. We thus confirm in a very direct way the theories predicting an interplay between two physical processes. Below a critical bunch charge, we observe a train of identical THz pulses (a broadband Terahertz comb) stemming from the shortness of the electron bunches. Above this threshold, a large part of the emission is dominated by drifting structures, which appear through spontaneous self-organization. These challenging single-shot THz recordings are made possible by using a recently developed photonic time stretch detector with a high sensitivity. The experiment has been realized at the SOLEIL storage ring.Received 28 July 2016DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.054801© 2017 American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasBeam instabilitiesRelativistic multiple-particle dynamicsAccelerators & Beams

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