Terahertz coherent synchrotron radiation from femtosecond laser modulation of the electron beam at the Advanced Light Source

At the Advanced Light Source (ALS), the 'femtoslicing' beamline is in operation since 1999 for the production of x-ray synchrotron radiation pulses with femtosecond duration. The mechanism used for generating the short x-ray pulses induces at the same time temporary structures in the electron bunch longitudinal distribution with very short characteristic length. Such structures emit intense coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) in the terahertz frequency range. These CSR pulses were first observed at the ALS, and the measurement of their intensity is now routinely used as a diagnostics for the tune-up of the femtoslicing x-ray experiments. At the same time, these CSR pulses synchronous with the modulating laser represent a potential source of terahertz radiation with very interesting features. Several measurements have been performed for their characterization and in this paper we present an updated description of the experimental results and of their interpretation. In particular, we include more data on the interesting interaction, previously observed at the ALS, between the slicing and the microbunching instability (MBI), where under particular circumstances, the slicing seems to trigger the onset of the instability.