Velocity bunching experiment at the Neptune laboratory

In this paper we describe the rectilinear compression experiment at the Neptune photoinjector at UCLA. The electron bunches have been shortened to sub-ps pulse length by chirping the beam energy spectrum in a short S-band high gradient standing wave RF cavity and then letting the electrons undergo velocity compression in the following rectilinear drift. Using a standard Martin Puplett interferometer to characterize coherent transition radiation from the beam, we measured bunch lengths as short as 0.4 ps with compression ratio in excess of 10 for an electron beam of 7 MeV energy and charge up to 300 pC.