Status Report on SPARC Project

We review the status of FEL source activity of the ongoing SPARC FEL experiment, developed within the framework of a collaboration among ENEA, CNR, INFN, INFM, Sincrotrone Trieste and University of Rome Tor Vergata. The project is aimed at realizing a SASE-FEL source, operating in the visible (around 500 nm), with an extended range of tunability down to the VUV (100 nm) by the use of the mechanism of non-linear harmonic generation. The development of the relevant activities foresees the realization of an advanced 150 MeV photo-injector source, aimed at producing a high brightness electron beams, needed to drive a SASE-FEL experiment, and a 14 m long undulator. We present the status of the design and construction of SPARC FEL device. In particular we discuss the choice of the project parameters, their optimization and the sensitivity of the SPARC performance to any parameter variation. We will show, using start-to-end simulations, what is the impact of the e-beam and of the undulator parameters on the characteristics of the output laser field and in particular on the amount of the non-linearly generated power at higher harmonics