Mode-locked multichromatic x-rays in a seeded free-electron laser for single-shot x-ray spectroscopy

We present the promise of generating gigawatt mode-locked multichromatic x-rays in a seeded free electron laser (FEL). We show that by using a laser to imprint periodic modulation in electron beam phase space, a single-frequency coherent seed can be amplified and further translated to a modelocked multichromatic output in an FEL. With this configuration the FEL output consists of a train of mode-locked ultrashort pulses which span a wide frequency gap with a series of equally spaced sharp lines. This gigawatt multichromatic x-rays may potentially allow one to explore the structure and dynamics of a large number of atomic states simultaneously. The feasibility of generating modelocked x-rays ranging from Carbon K-edge (∼284 eV) to Copper L3 edge (∼931 eV) is confirmed with numerical simulation using the realistic parameters of the linac coherent light source (LCLS) and LCLS-II. We anticipate that the mode-locked multichromatic x-rays in FELs may open up new opportunities in x-ray spectroscopy (i.e. resonant inelastic x-ray scattering, time-resolved scattering and spectroscopy, etc.).