A Simple Method for Simulation of Coherent Synchrotron Radiation in a Tracking Code

Coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) is of great interest to those designing accelerators as drivers for free-electron lasers (FELs). Although experimental evidence is incomplete, CSR is predicted to have potentially severe effects on the emittance of high-brightness electron beams. The performance of an FEL depends critically on the emittance, current, and energy spread of the beam. Attempts to increase the current through magnetic bunch compression can lead to increased emittance and energy spread due to CSR in the dipoles of such a compressor. The code elegant [1] was used for design and simulation of the bunch compressor [2] for the Low-Energy Undulator Test Line (LEUTL) FEL [3] at the Advanced Photon Source (APS). In order to facilitate this design, a fast algorithm was developed based on the 1-D formalism of Saldin and coworkers [4]. In addition, a plausible method of including CSR effects in drift spaces following the chicane magnets was developed and implemented. The algorithm is fast enough to permit running hundreds of tolerance simulations including CSR for 50 thousand particles. This article describes the details of the implementation and shows results for the APS bunch compressor.