New perspectives and programs in Italy for advanced applications of high brightness beams

At the end of 2001 the Italian Government launched a call for proposals to the national research institutions for the design and construction of an Ultra-Brilliant X-ray Laser, with a dedicated funding up to 94 million E for this initiative. The Italian community responded by submitting two proposals, both envisaging a Linac based SASE-FEL as a source of coherent X-ray radiation. The two anticipated machines are quite similar to each other, as they basically consist of a few GeV Linac driving a SASE-FEL operated at a minimum wavelength around 15 angstrom. Here we describe the essential features of the two proposals: SPARX has been prepared by a collaboration among CNR-ENEA-INFN and Universita' di Roma "Tor Vergata", while FERMI@ELETTRA by INFM and Sincrotrone Trieste. We will also illustrate the status of the R&D project SPARC, aiming at the design and construction of an advanced 150 MeV photo-injector for generating a high brightness electron beam to drive a SASE-FEL in the optical range. This project has been approved by the Italian Government to conduct an R&D activity aimed to be strategic on the way to the coherent Xray source; it is pursued by a CNR-ENEA-INFN-Universita' Tor Vergata-INFM-ST collaboration and will be located in the INFN National Laboratory at Frascati.