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Introduction

XTCAV is a detector that is used to determine the laser-power vs. time of each LCLS shot.  Alvaro Sanchez-Gonzalez has written psana-python code to do the rather complex analysis of images from the XTCAV camera to determine these quantities.  Some detailed documentation from Tim Maxwell on this device is Here.

Analysis Setup

Two things must be done before XTCAV analysis will function: a "dark run" must be analyzed to get the pedestal values for cameras, and a "no lasing" run must be analyzed to generate sets of "no lasing" images (the latter is quite a complex process).  An example of a dark-run analysis is:

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Once the above has been completed, the user can analyze the lasing-on events.

Example Analysis Script

This script assumes that dark/lasing-off data has been analyzed (see above)

import psana
from xtcav.ShotToShotCharacterization import *
experiment='amoc8114'  #Experiment label
runs='87'              #Runs
#Loading the dataset from the "dark" run, this way of working should be compatible with both xtc and hdf5 files
dataSource=psana.DataSource("exp=%s:run=%s:idx" % (experiment,runs))
#XTCAV Retrieval (setting the data source is useful to get information such as experiment name)
XTCAVRetrieval=ShotToShotCharacterization();
XTCAVRetrieval.SetEnv(dataSource.env())
for r,run in enumerate(dataSource.runs()):
    times = run.times()
    for t in times:
        evt = run.event(t)
        if not XTCAVRetrieval.SetCurrentEvent(evt):
            continue
        time,power,ok=XTCAVRetrieval.XRayPower()  
        agreement,ok=XTCAVRetrieval.ReconstructionAgreement()

How Often to Take a Lasing Off Run

(courtesy of Tim Maxwell)

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There's not really a hard, fast rule here. When necessary or when time allows has been the practical answer so far.

Lasing-off Analysis Parameters

(courtesy of Alvaro Sanchez-Gonzalez)

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• normal sase (not many beam-related fluctuations): take sqrt of number shots and use that many groups (beat down background noise with lots of averaging).   Tim suggests perhaps a maximum of 100 groups.
• slotted foil (many beam-related of fluctuations): restrict it to 5-10 images per group, make as many groups as possible using typically 30 seconds to a minute of data at 60Hz.

120Hz Operation Issues

(Thoughts from Tim Maxwell on 2/2/2015, discouraging this mode of operation)

This was an option. However it restricts the vertical energy ROI. For soft xrays it would easily and frequently clip the image of the beam as well as require very careful ROI management, and so may have compromised random images for your data.

Another largely untested option are other running conditions recently found. This appears to delay tagging of all images by one event (3 fiducials). However, we are absolutely not certain this behavior is consistent and therefore don't recommend it for critical data.

Detector Resolution

(From Tim Maxwell)

Time resolution is around 1.1 fs RMS for soft x-rays, 2.5 fs fwhm (in quadrature, of course). So actually pulse length is probably 4.3 - 9.7 fs FWHM.

This also doesn't include the "slippage resolution." That is, if they're using the full undulator, then by the end the x-rays can have slipped out of the electron slice by ~3 fs for soft x-rays. Obviously not a small number if trying to make 5 fs pulses. They've been advised to not use the full undulator when shorter pulses are more important than number of photons.

Algorithm Details

(courtesy of Mihir Mongia)

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