Software for the data analysis of the arrival-timing monitor at SACLA

J Synchrotron Radiat. 2018 Mar 1;25(Pt 2):592-603. doi: 10.1107/S1600577517016654. Epub 2018 Feb 7.

Abstract

X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) pulses from SPring-8 Ångstrom Compact free-electron LAser (SACLA) with a temporal duration of <10 fs have provided a variety of benefits in scientific research. In a previous study, an arrival-timing monitor was developed to improve the temporal resolution in pump-probe experiments at beamline 3 by rearranging data in the order of the arrival-timing jitter between the XFEL and the synchronized optical laser pulses. This paper presents Timing Monitor Analyzer (TMA), a software package by which users can conveniently obtain arrival-timing data in the analysis environment at SACLA. The package is composed of offline tools that pull stored data from cache storage, and online tools that pull data from a data-handling server in semi-real time during beam time. Users can select the most suitable tool for their purpose, and share the results through a network connection between the offline and online analysis environments.

Keywords: SACLA; X-ray free-electron laser; arrival-timing monitor; data analysis; software.