Initial laser acceleration experiments of the E163 program at SLAC

This paper presents the initial results in laser electron acceleration from the newly commissioned E163 program at SLAC and an outline of the initial wave of experiments. These results include an inverse free electron laser (IFEL) interaction with 800 nm light from a Ti: sapphire laser which will be used along with a chicane to produce optically spaced electron microbunches. The microbunching is independently diagnosed via coherent optical transition radiation (COTR) at the second harmonic (400 nm) in order to avoid large background at the fundamental due to the laser. We will also discuss experiments that take the microbunch train formed by the IFEL/chicane and perform net acceleration using a second stage: an inverse transition radiation accelerator (ITR). This discussion includes the experiment layout and hardware as well as simulation of expected results.