Laser Assisted Emittance Exchange
We describe here the laser assisted emittance exchange (LAEE) technique. A laser operating in the transverse mode (TEM10 or TEM01) is used to interact with the electron beam in a dispersive region and to initiate the transverse-to-longitudinal emittance exchange. It is shown that with the LAEE one can generate an electron beam with ultralow transverse emittance, which allows one to significantly bring down the size of an X-ray free electron laser (FEL) and greatly extend the availability of these light sources. The technique can also be used to enhance the performances of X-ray FELs in storage rings. The timing and energy jitter problems for the standard emittance exchange and LAEE techniques are also discussed.