Study of Laser Wakefield Accelerators as injectors for Synchrotron light sources

Laser WakeField Accelerators (LWFA) feature short bunch lengths and high peak currents, combined with a small facility footprint. This makes them very interesting as injectors for Synchrotron light sources. Using the ANKA Synchrotron as an example, we investigate the possibility to inject a LWFA bunch into an electron storage ring. Particular emphasis is put on the longitudinal evolution of the bunch. •Short electron bunches are very interesting for the generation of Synchrotron radiation.•LWFA have therefore been studied as injectors for ring-based light sources.•It was shown that preserving their initial bunch length is very challenging.•Bunch density evolution could still lead to interesting radiation properties.