Reduction of the higher-order field distribution in a photocathode rf gun for the X-ray free electron laser

The mechanism of the higher-order rf field elimination in the photocathode rf gun used for the X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) machine is discovered. The analysis and the measurement results of the rf field in several models of the rf gun with several holes at the cavity wall are presented. The contribution of the holes to the asymmetrical distribution of the rf field along the azimuthal angle is measured with several model cavities. Using a comparison between the experimental results and the numerically-obtained rf field distribution, we can reveal that the origin of the quadrupole component growing at the cavity with two holes and of the octapole component growing at the cavity with four holes is the superposition of the rf fields in the cavity. Two kinds of model cavities with several holes at the cavity wall have been fabricated, and the rf field distributions of the model cavities have been measured to compare with the theoretical analysis and the numerically-obtained rf field. From the analyses, we decided to adopt an rf gun that has dual feeds and two pumping holes for the Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (PAL-XFEL) project.