2025/02/23 by Goetzke, Gesa, Plumley, Rajan, Hartmann, Gregor +6
#Accelerator Physics (physics.acc-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2502.16392
X-ray Free Electron Lasers (X\nobreakdash-FELs) operate in a wide range of lasing configurations for a broad variety of scientific applications at ultrafast time-scales such as structural biology, materials science, and atomic and molecular physics. Shot-by-shot characterization of the X-FEL pulses is crucial for analysis of many experiments as well as tuning the X-FEL performance. However, for the weak pulses found in advanced configurations, e.g. those needed for coherent, two-pulse studies of quantum materials, there is no current method for reliably resolving pulse profiles. Here we show that a physics-based U-net model can reconstruct the individual pulse power profiles for sub-picosecond pulse separation without the need for simulations. Using experimental data from weak X-FEL pulse pairs, we demonstrate we can learn the pulse characteristics on a shot-by-shot basis when conventional methods fail.