Status of XFEL/SPring-8 Construction and Beam Commissioning

Beam commissioning of XFEL/SPring-8 has been started from February 21, 2011. I would like to report recent news from the beam commissioning team, and look back R&Ds and machine construction. XFEL/SPring-8 machine is based on unique technologies; (1) Single-crystal thermionic-cathode electron gun, (2) High gradient C-band accelerator and (3) In-vacuum undulator, which enable the FEL facility compact and to fit within available site length of 700 m at SPring-8. Machine construction started from 2006, after five years construction, all of the hardware installation have been completed in 2010. From October 2010, we started high power processing of 128 accelerator columns in the C-band accelerators from upstream, ~80% of those have been processed up to 37 MV/m. Beam is running today, around injector part, performance looks fine. More detail will be reported. Attached figure is view looking down 400 m C-band accelerator.

Speaker: Tsumoru Shintake, KEK