Vacuum ultraviolet coherent undulator radiation from attosecond electron bunches

Attosecond duration relativistic electron bunches travelling through an undulator can generate brilliant coherent radiation in the visible to vacuum ultraviolet spectral range. We present comprehensive numerical simulations to study the properties of coherent emission for a wide range of electron energies and bunch durations, including space-charge effects. These demonstrate that electron bunches with r.m.s. duration of 50 as, nominal charge of 0.1 pC and energy range of 100–250 MeV produce 109 coherent photons per pulse in the 100–600 nm wavelength range. We show that this can be enhanced substantially by self-compressing negatively chirped 100 pC bunches in the undulator to produce 1014 coherent photons with pulse duration of 0.5–3 fs