CHARACTERIZATION OF PS-SPACED COMB BEAMS AT SPARC

SPARC in Frascati is a high brightness photo-injector used to explore advanced beam manipulation techniques. Sub-picosecond, high brightness electron bunch trains (the so called comb beam) can be generated illuminating the cathode of a RF photoinjector with a laser pulse train and via velocity bunching technique. In this paper different aspects of the physics of this advanced beam manipulation technique are discussed combining simulation and measurements. Beam dynamics numerical macroparticle simulations have been compared with the experimental results for model validation; they allow to gain insights on the beam evolution highlighting several aspects which can not be measured. In particular, we focus on the train evolution in the linac sections and in the dogleg line up to the THz station and on the effective rms length of the single pulses within the train when it becomes shorter than the resolution.