Storage Ring Design Optimization for Fel Operation

An electron beam in a storage ring seems to be a perfect driver for a free electron laser. The understanding of storage rings is very well advanced to.project designs with high peak current, small beam sizesand short damping times. Since the beam is recycled after passage through the optical cavity we can expect a relatively high overall efficiency. On the other hand, however the fact that we do want the beam to circulate and interact with the laser field every turn puts a limit on the ~11~~ able perturbation of the beam due to the laser field. This limits the peak laser power we can get from a storage ring beam. The main advantage of a storage ring for FEL operation therefore is realized for continuous high power laser generation.