• P.K. Skowronski, S. Bettoni, R. Corsini, S. Döbert, F. Tecker
  CERN, Geneva
• D. Alesini, C. Biscari
  INFN/LNF, Frascati (Roma)
• Y.-C. Chao
  TRIUMF, Vancouver

The objective of the CLIC Test Facility CTF3 is to demonstrate the feasibility issues of the CLIC two-beam technology. CTF3 consists of an electron linac followed by a delay loop, a combiner ring and a two-beam test area. One issue studied in CTF3 is the efficient generation of a very high current drive beam, used in CLIC as the power source to accelerate the main beam to multi-TeV energies. The beam current is first doubled in the delay loop and then multiplied by a factor four in the combiner ring by interleaving bunches using transverse deflecting rf cavities. The combiner ring and the connecting transfer line have been put into operation in 2007. In this paper we give the status of the commissioning, present the results of the combination tests and illustrate in some detail the beam optics measurements, including response matrix analysis, dispersion measurement and applied orbit correction algorithms. We discuss as well the observation of a vertical beam break-up instability which is due to the vertical transverse mode in the horizontal rf deflectors used for beam injection and combination. We outline the attempted methods to mitigate the instability and their effectiveness.

• R. Boni, D. Alesini, M. Bellaveglia, C. Biscari, M. Boscolo, M. Castellano, E. Chiadroni, A. Clozza, L. Cultrera, G. Di Pirro, A. Drago, A. Esposito, M. Ferrario, L. Ficcadenti, D. Filippetto, V. Fusco, A. Gallo, G. Gatti, A. Ghigo, B. Marchetti, A. Marinelli, C. Marrelli, M. Migliorati, A. Mostacci, E. Pace, L. Palumbo, L. Pellegrino, R. Ricci, U. Rotundo, C. Sanelli, M. Serio, F. Sgamma, B. Spataro, F. Tazzioli, S. Tomassini, C. Vaccarezza, M. Vescovi, C. Vicario
  INFN/LNF, Frascati (Roma)
• A. Bacci, I. Boscolo, F. Broggi, F. Castelli, S. Cialdi, C. De Martinis, D. Giove, C. Maroli, V. Petrillo, A.R. Rossi, L. Serafini
  Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Milano
• M. Bougeard, B. Carré, D. Garzella, M. Labat, G. Lambert, H. Merdji, P. Salières, O. Tchebakoff
  CEA, Gif-sur-Yvette
• L. Catani, A. Cianchi
  INFN-Roma II, Roma
• F. Ciocci, G. Dattoli, M. Del Franco, A. Dipace, A. Doria, G.P. Gallerano, L. Giannessi, E. Giovenale, A. Lo Bue, G.L. Orlandi, S. Pagnutti, A. Petralia, M. Quattromini, C. Ronsivalle, P. Rossi, E. Sabia, I.P. Spassovsky, V. Surrenti
  ENEA C.R. Frascati, Frascati (Roma)
• M.-E. Couprie
  SOLEIL, Gif-sur-Yvette
• M. Mattioli, M. Petrarca, M. Serluca
  INFN-Roma, Roma
• J.B. Rosenzweig
  UCLA, Los Angeles, California
• J. Roßbach
  DESY, Hamburg

Funding: Work partially supported by the EU Commission in the sixth framework program. Contract No. 011935 EUROFEL and MIUR(Research Department of Italian Government).
An intense activity on high brilliance photo-injectors for SASE-FEL experiments and facilities, is being carried out, since 2003, in the research site of the INFN Frascati Laboratory, Rome, in collaboration with CNR and ENEA. The SPARC project, a 150 MeV photo-injector, is currently in advanced phase of commissioning. The electron beam, which drives a 530 nm FEL experiment, is being characterized in terms of emittance, energy spread, peak current. The matching with the linac confirmed the theoretical prediction of emittance compensation based on the invariant-envelope matching. The demonstration of the velocity-bunching technique is in progress too. The SPARC photo-injector is the test facility for the soft-X FEL project named SPARX, that is based on the generation of ultra high peak brightness electron beams at the energies of 1.2 and 2.4 GeV generating radiation in the 1.5-13 nm range. SPARX will be realized in the Tor-Vergata University campus. In this paper we report the experimental results obtained so far with SPARC and the design status of the SPARX project.

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