Accurate timing of ultrafast x-ray probe pulses emitted from a synchrotron radiation source with respect to a pump laser exciting processes in the sample under study is critical for the investigation of structural dynamics in the femtosecond regime. We describe a scheme for synchronizing femtosecond x-ray pulses relative to a pump laser. X-ray pulses of <100 fs duration are generated from a proposed source based on a recirculating superconducting linac [1,2,3]. Short x-ray pulses are obtained by a process of electron pulse compression, followed by transverse temporal correlation of the electrons, and ultimately x-ray pulse compression. Timing of the arrival of the x-ray pulse with respect to the pump laser is found to be dominated by the operation of the deflecting cavities which provide the transverse temporal correlation of the electrons. The deflecting cavities are driven from a highly stable RF signal derived from a modelocked laser oscillator which is also the origin of the pump laser pulses.

Accurate timing of ultrafast x-ray probe pulses emitted from a synchrotron radiation source with respect to the signal initiating a process in the sample under study is critical for the investigation of structural dynamics in the femtosecond regime. We describe schemes for achieving accurate timing of femtosecond x-ray synchrotron radiation pulses relative to a pump laser, where x-rays pulses of <100 fs duration are generated from the proposed LUX source based on a recirculating superconducting linac. We present a description of the timing signal generation and distribution systems to minimize timing jitter of the x-rays relative to the experimental lasers.

We report on the development of an instrument for the measurement of the longitudinal beam profile in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The technique used, which has been successfully demonstrated at the Advanced Light Source, mixes the synchrotron radiation with the light from a mode-locked solid state laser oscillator in a non-linear crystal. The up-converted radiation is then detected with a photomultiplier and processed to extract, store and display the required information. A 40 MHz laser, phase-locked to the ring radio frequency system, with a 50 ps pulse length, would be suitable for measuring the dynamics of the core of each of the LHC 2808 bunches in a time span much shorter than the synchrotron period. The same instrument could also monitor the evolution of the bunch tails, the presence of untrapped particles and their diffusion into nominally empty RF buckets ("ghost bunches") as required by the CERN specifications.