Focusing peculiarities of ion-channel guiding on a relativistic electron beam in a free-electron laser with a three-dimensional wiggler

摘要

In a free-electron laser the 'natural focusing' effect of a three-dimensional wiggler is too weak to confine the transport of a relativistic electron beam when the beam has a high current and consequently an external focusing system is often needed. In this paper we study the focusing peculiarities of an ion-channel guide field on an electron beam. Nonlinear simulations of an electron beam transport show that, compared to an axial guide magnetic field, the ion-channel guide field results in smaller velocity-space and configuration-space spreads. The intrinsic mechanism of this physical phenomenon is that the ion-channel guide field confines the trajectory of the electron motion resulting in a smaller instantaneous curvature radius and a slighter curvature-center excursion than an axial guide magnetic field does. It is also found that, unlike with an axial guide magnetic field, over-focusing may occur if the ion-channel guide field is too strong.