Some issues and subtleties in numerical simulation of X-ray FELs

Part of the overall design effort for X-ray FELs such as the LCLS and TESLA projects has involved extensive use of particle simulation codes to predict their output performance and underlying sensitivity to various input parameters (e.g. electron beam emittance). This paper discusses some of the numerical issues that must be addressed by simulation codes in this regime. We first give a brief overview of the standard approximations and simulation methods adopted by time-dependent (i.e. polychromatic) codes such as ginger (LBNL Report No. LBNL-49625, 2002), genesis (Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 429 (1999) 243), and fast3d (Nucl. Instr. and Meth. A 429 (1999) 233), including the effects of temporal discretization and the resultant limited spectral bandpass, and then discuss the accuracies and inaccuracies of these codes in predicting incoherent spontaneous emission (i.e. the extremely low gain regime).