Coherence and Linewidth Studies of a 4-nm High Power FEL

Recently the SSRL/SLAC and its collaborators elsewhere have considered[1] the merits of a 2 to 4-nm high power FEL utilizing the SLAC linac electron beam. The FEL would be a single pass amplifier excited by spontaneous emission rather than an oscillator, in order to eliminate the need for a soft X-ray resonant cavity. We have used GINGER, a multifrequency 2D FEL simulation code, to study the expected linewidth and coherence properties of the FEL, in both the exponential and saturated gain regimes. We present results concerning the effective shot noise input power and mode shape, the expected sub-percent output line widths, photon flux, and the field temporal and spatial correlation functions. We also discuss the effects of tapering the wiggler upon the output power and line width.