Analytical solution for phase space evolution of electrons operating in a self-amplified spontaneous emission free electron laser

I present an analytical solution for the phase space evolution of electrons in a self-amplified spontaneous emission (SASE) free-electron laser (FEL) operating in the linear regime before saturation in the resonant case by solving the one dimensional FEL equation together with the solution of the cubic equation, which represents the evolution of the SASE FEL field. The electrons are shown to be bunched around π/6 ahead of a resonant electron every resonant FEL wavelength in the high gain regime. The phase relation is similar to that in a low gain FEL where an electron beam above resonance is injected, explaining the positive FEL gain. The analytical solutions agree well with numerical simulations and are applied to obtain the coherent optical transition radiation (OTR) intensity produced from electron microbunching at FEL wavelength. The coherent OTR intensity is shown to be proportional to FEL intensity.