Beam Preparation with Temporally Modulated Photocathode Laser Pulses for a Seeded THz FEL

The need for carrier-envelope-phase (CEP) stable THz pump pulses is recognized at many pump-probe experiments at the European XFEL. At the Photo Injector Test Facility at DESY in Zeuthen (PITZ), a proof-of-principle experiment of an accelerator-based THz FEL source is in preparation. Since the CEP stability of FEL pulses is not guaranteed in the SASE regime, a seeding scheme is needed. A common scheme for seeding is to drive the microbunching process with external laser pulses, which are power-limited in the THz range. Alternatively, a pre-bunched beam, generated for example by applying a temporally modulated photocathode laser pulse, can be used to drive the FEL. The beam dynamics with such a seeding method are studied with ASTRA tracking code simulations with space-charge forces as well as experimentally. The results of these studies are shown and discussed