A table-top x-ray FEL based on a laser wakefield accelerator-undulator system

Ultrahigh-gradient electron acceleration has been confirmed owing to the laser wakefield acceleration mechanism driven by an intense short laser wakefield acceleration mechanism driven by an intense short laser pulse in an underdense plasma. The laser wakefield acceleration makes it possible to build a compact electron linac capable of producing an ultra-short bunched electron beam. While the accelerator is attributed to longitudinal wakefields, transverse wakefields simultaneously generated by a short laser pulse can serve as a plasma undulator with a very short wavelength equal to a half of the plasma wavelength. We propose a new FEL concept for X-rays based on a laser wakefield accelerator-undulator system driven by intense short laser pulses delivered from table-top terawatt lasers. The system is composed of the accelerator stage and the undulator stage in a table-top size. A low energy electron beam is accelerated an bunched into microbunches due to laser wakefields in the accelerator stage. A micro-bunched beam travelling to the opposite direction of driving laser pulses produces coherent X-ray radiation in the undulator stage. A practical configuration and its analyses are presented