Differences between intra- and extra-cavity pulse time structure in a hole-coupled free-electron laser

In the strong-slippage regime of a free-electron laser, the optical pulse inside the resonator is composed of a series of subsequently growing and decaying subpulses due to a limit-cycle oscillation. The picosecond time structure of the outcoupled pulses can be quite different from that of the intracavity pulse, in case of outcoupling through a hole and for specific resonator parameters. This is demonstrated by autocorrelation measurements and corroborated by simulations.