Stable coherent terahertz synchrotron radiation from controlled relativistic electron bunches

Relativistic electron bunches used in synchrotron light sources are complex media, in which patterns might form spontaneously. These spatial structures were studied over the past decades for very practical reasons. The patterns, which spontaneously appear during an instability, increase the terahertz radiation power by factors exceeding 10,000(1,2). However, their irregularity(1-7) largely prevented applications of this powerful source. Here we show that principles from chaos control theory(8-10) allow us to generate regular spatio-temporal patterns, stabilizing the emitted terahertz power. Regular unstable solutions are expected to coexist with the undesired irregular solutions, and may thus be controllable using feedback control. We demonstrate the stabilization of such regular solutions in the Synchrotron SOLEIL storage ring. Operation of these controlled unstable solutions enables new designs of high-charge and stable synchrotron radiation sources.