SPARC project and SPARX proposal

SPARC and SPARX are two distinct phases of an Italian FEL SASE project involving different national institutions. SPARC is a high gain FEL project aimed at developing a source of visible and VUV radiation exploiting SASE mechanisms. A 150 MeV Linac will provide a high quality e-beam to generate high brilliance FEL radiation at visible region at the fundamental wavelength and at VUV wavelengths with the harmonics. SPARC will allow to investigate velocity bunching mechanisms in the bunch compressor and coherent harmonic generation in the undulators. SPARX is a project aimed at the realization of an FEL SASE source operating at 13.5 and 1.5 nm in two separate undulators channels with a 2.5 GeV electron beam. SPARX development is expected to take profit of the SPARC activities and part of the equipment. We describe here the main features of these two projects including accelerators system, FEL sections and applications.