首先什么是自由电子激光？自由电子激光是由曼莱于1971年在他的博士论文中首次提出的，利用自由电子为工作媒质产生的强相干辐射。自由电子激光是利用自由电子为工作媒质产生的强相干辐射，它的产生机理不同于原子内束缚电子的受激辐射。自由电子激光的基本原理是通过自由电子和光辐射的相互作用，电子将能量转送给辐射而使辐射强度增大。本书是介绍自由电子激光的经典理论专著，一部英文版的物理学专著。本书共分为15章内容。

Preface
Acknowledgements
Author biography
1 Introduction and overview
1.1 The free-electron laser
1.2 Classical stimulated emission
1.3 Electron bunching
1.4 FEL equations of motion
References
2 The classical limit
2.1 Emission and absorption
2.2 Compton recoil
2.3 Wavepacket spreading
References
3 Electron beam dynamics
3.1 Phase space and emittance
3.1.1 Beam envelope equation
3.2 Focusing properties of the undulator
3.3 Matching into the FEL
Reference
4 Undulator trajectories
4.1 Transverse motion
4.2 Longitudinal motion
5 Spontaneous emission
5.1 Spectral lineshape
5.2 Spontaneous power (weak undulator fields)
5.3 Spontaneous power (strong undulator fields)
References
6 Effect of the optical field on electron motion
6.1 The Lorentz equation
6.2 The FEL pendulum equation
References
7 Effect of electron motio~ on the optical field
7.1 The wave equation
7.2 Transverse currents
7.3 The FEL wave equation
7.4 Energy conservation
References
8 Transverse modes in the equations of motion
8.1 Superposition of transverse modes
8.2 The mode evolution equation
8.3 The multimode pendulum equation
8.4 The filling factor
References
9 Small-signal gain-first derivation
9.1 Gain from energy conservation
9.2 Gain-spread theorem
9.3 Approximate solution of the FEL equations
9.4 Gouy phase shift
References
10 Gain reduction and other effects
10.1 Electron beam emittance
10.2 High current and high gain
10.3 Energy spread
10.4 Short-pulse effects
10.5 Summary
Reference
11 Laser saturation and output power
11.1 The nature of FEL saturation
11.2 Strong-saturation effects
11.3 Intensity dependence
11.4 Analysis of optical resonators
11.5 Extraction efficiency
11.6 Incorporation of energy spread
12 Harmonic lasing
12.1 Small-signal gain
12.2 Saturation and output power
12.3 Spontaneous emission
13 Helical undulators
13.1 Electron trajectories
13.2 FEL coupled equations of motion
13.3 Small-signal gain
14 Small-signal gain-second derivation
14.1 The equation for weak fields
14.2 FEL gain and dispersion
14.3 A digression on numerical simulations
References
15 Short-pulse propagation
15.1 General description
15.2 The coupled Maxwell-Lorentz equations
15.3 Optical pulse evolution
15.4 Cavity detuning and refractive effects
15.5 Mode locked FEL theory
References
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