Time-interleaved multienergy acceleration for an x-ray free-electron laser facility

To meet the demand from the growing number of user experiments, multi-beam-line operation with a wide spectral range is seriously considered in x-ray free-electron laser facilities. In a conventional design, the beam line of low photon energies branches off from the middle of the accelerator to take out low energy electron beams. Here in this paper, a novel method is proposed to deliver bunch-to-bunch energy changed electron beams at the end of the accelerator. Since all accelerator components are operated in steady state, this method enables quasisimultaneous operation of multi-beam-line in the same undulator hall without degrading the stability and performance of the electron beam.