Overview on production and dynamics of high brightness beams

The advent of laser driven RF Photoinjectors has raised the interest in the beam dynamics associated with intense, quasi-laminar, space charge dominated electron beams: the relevant phenomena observed in such a new regime of beam physics are presented and discussed in this paper. Most of the emphasis is focused on the analysis of the so called emittance correction technique, which is applied in the operation of RF guns in order to enhance the performances of these devices in terms of the attainable beam brightness, i.e., minimizing the beam emittance. A fully analytical description of this process is presented, based on an envelope equation treatment which leads to the concept of invariant envelope. The implications of such a concept are discussed and specific examples are given to compare the analytical predictions to the results of numerical simulations.