Observation of two-dimensional longitudinal-transverse correlations in an electron beam by laser-electron interactions

During the preparatory work for the optical-replica synthesizer experiment in the free-electron laser FLASH at DESY, we were able to superimpose a short, approximately 200 fs long pulse from a frequency-doubled mode-locked erbium laser with titanium-sapphire amplifier and an approximately 20 ps long electron bunch in an undulator. This induces an energy modulation in a longitudinal slice of the electron bunch. A magnetic chicane downstream of the undulator converts the energy modulation into a density modulation within the slice that causes the emission of coherent optical transition radiation from a silver-coated silicon screen. Varying the relative timing between electron and laser, we use a camera to record two-dimensional images of the slices as a function of the longitudinal position within the electron bunch.