Theoretical study of a waveguide THz free electron laser and comparisons with simulations

Abstract

In a so-called waveguide free electron laser (FEL) for THz radiations, an extremely small aperture (∼mm) waveguide is used to confine angularly wide spread radiation fields from a low energy electron beam into a small area. This confinement increases the interaction between the electron beam and the radiation fields to achieve a much higher FEL gain. The radiation fields propagate inside the waveguide as waveguide modes, not like a light flux in a free space FEL. This characteristic behavior of the radiation fields makes intuitive understanding of the waveguide FEL difficult. We developed a three-dimensional waveguide FEL theory to calculate a gain of THz waveguide FEL including the effects of the energy spread, the beam size and the betatron oscillations of an electron beam, and effects of a rectangular waveguide. The FEL gain can be calculated as a function of frequency by solving the dispersion relation. Theoretical gains are compared with simulation results for a waveguide FEL with a planar undulator similar to the KAERI one. Good agreements are obtained.