SPARC and SPARX are two different initiatives toward an X-ray FEL SASE source at LNF. SPARC is a high gain FEL project devoted to provide a source of visible and VUV radiation while exploiting SASE mechanism. An advanced Photo-Injector system, emittance self-compensating RF-gun plus a 150 MeV Linac, will inject a high quality e-beam into the undulator to generate high brilliance FEL radiation in the visible region at the fundamental wavelength, (530 nm). The production of flat top drive laser beams, high peak current bunches, and an emittance compensation scheme will be investigated together with the generation of higher harmonic radiation in the VUV region. SPARX is the direct evolution of such a high gain SASE FEL towards the 13.5 and 1.5 nm operating wavelengths, at 2.5 GeV. The first phase of the SPARX project, funded by Government Agencies, will be focused on R&D activity on critical components and techniques for future X-ray facilities as described in this paper.

The GRAAL facility produces a highly polarized gamma-ray beam by Compton scattering of laser photons on the electrons of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) at Grenoble. Preliminary results have been obtained with the LAGRANGE detector showing its excellent performances

In the framework of investigation of meson photo-production on proton and neutron in a deuterium target at the GRAAL experiment, we present a method to identify the vertex of interaction when in reaction products there are at least two charged particles, by the information provided by the cylindrical multiwire proportional chambers. By this device, we are able to obtain the direction of charged particles that leave the target after a photo-production reaction. For each charged particle, the device provides the coordinates of two points in the laboratory reference system, and the z-axis represents the beam direction. We calculate the trajectory of each charged particle and its cross point, representing the vertex of the reaction.

A plastic scintillating disc (NE102, 3 cm thick, 1 m diameter) has been designed for detecting charged pions in nuclear reactions at intermediate energy. A hole of 20 cm diameter was made in the middle of the disc in order to allow for the beam passage through the detector. The originality of the detector consists of the simultaneous use of four very compact central photomultiplier tubes (PMT) and eight peripheral PMTs in order to retrieve the hitting point of a charged particle onto the disc surface with a space resolution of plusmn3 cm. The original method has been developed by using polar coordinates and only the time-of-flight information (TOF) from three or four nearest PMTs, including at least one central PMT

The Sigma beam asymmetry in the photoproduction of neutral pions from quasi-free nucleons in a deuteron target was measured for the first time between 0.60 and 1.50 GeV, with the GRAAL polarized and tagged photon beam. The asymmetry values from the quasi-free proton were found equal to the ones extracted from a pure proton target. The asymmetries from quasi-free proton and quasi-free neutron were found equal up to 0.82 GeV and substantially different at higher energies. The results are compared with recent partial-wave analyses.

The authors present the first measurements of the gamma-ray beam energy resolution obtained with a new tagging system for the Ladon facility on the storage ring Adone at Frascati. A resolution of the order of 3% in the energy region of 30-80 MeV is obtained in accordance with predictions

The static polarization of HD samples has been achieved using "brute force", for HD samples purified by double distillation. Proton polarization in excess of 60% and deuteron vector polarization higher than 14% have been reached. It has been demonstrated that the ageing technique allows to get relaxation times at 1.5 K and 1 T larger than a week. It is advocated that the conventional dynamic polarization of HD should be feasible for the proton and the deuteron contained in the HD molecule. This would simplify considerably the machinery presently necessary to perform nuclear physics experiments with HD targets polarized by the static method

The gamma p -> eta'p reaction was studied near the threshold, in the 1.44 GeV > E(gamma) < 1.55GeV energy range with the tagged photons of the former GRAAL experiment. The two neutral decays gamma gamma(Gamma(i)/Gamma = 2.10 +/- 0.12%) and pi(0)pi(0)eta(Gamma(i)/Gamma = 20.7 +/- 1.2%) were analized and preliminary results of the beam asymmetry were extracted together with the invariant masses.

Beam asymmetry and differential cross-section for the reaction gamma p -> eta p were measured from production threshold to 1500MeV photon laboratory energy. The two dominant neutral decay modes of the eta-meson, eta -> 2 gamma and eta -> 3 pi(0) , were analyzed. The full set of measurements is in good agreement with previously published results. Our data were compared with three models. They all fit satisfactorily the results but their respective resonance contributions are quite different. The possible photoexcitation of a narrow state N(1670) was investigated and no evidence was found.

Experimental results on proton and charged pion detection obtained from a study of the +np+- reaction are reported in detail. Data have been collected using the tagged and linearly polarized photon beam, impinging on a deuterium target, and the large solid angle apparatus of the GRAAL facility in Grenoble (France). The energy of the charged particles was measured using a BGO calorimeter. A comparison of the experimental data with a GEANT3-based simulation is also presented.

The BGO Rugby Ball is a large solid angle electromagnetic calorimeter now installed in the ELSA Facility in Bonn. The BGO is operating in the BGO-OD experiment aiming to study meson photoproduction off proton and neutron induced by a Bremsstrahlung polarized gamma beam of energies from 0.2 to 3.2 GeV and an intensity of 5 x 10(7) photons per second. The scintillating material characteristics and the photomultiplier read-out make this detector particularly suited for the detection of medium energy photons and electrons with very good energy resolution. The detector has been equipped with a new electronics read-out system, consisting of 30 sampling ADC Wie-Ne-R modules which perform the off-line reconstruction of the signal start-time allowing for a good timing resolution. Performances in linearity, resolution and time response have been carefully tested at the Beam Test Facility of the INFN National Laboratories in Frascati by using a matrix of 7 BGO crystals coupled to photomultipliers and equipped with the Wie-Ne-R sampling ADCs.

Compton backscattering gamma ray beams are characterized by a high degree of linear and circular polarization with low unpolarized backgrounds and have proven to provide very precise measurements of polarization observables. Latest results from LEGS and GRAAL experiments on proton and deuteron targets are presented. The Sigma beam asymmetry for omega photoproduction has been measured by the GRAAL collaboration for both the omega -> pi(0)gamma and the omega -> pi(+)pi(+)pi(0) decay channels on the proton target; single and double polarization asymmetries have been provided also for the K photoproduction channel. E and G double polarization asymmetries for single pion photoproduction on the proton and deuteron have been measured at LEGS using a frozen spin HD target.

This work discusses production of Ladon gamma ray beams from lasers, tagging, photonuclear reactions and background problems

The preliminary results obtained by the GRAAL collaboration for the pi(0)pi(+) photoproduction on the free and quasi-free proton (deuteron) at E(gamma) = 0.7-1.5 GeV are presented. The total cross section of the gamma p -> pi(0)pi(+)n reaction and invariant mass spectra for the pi(+)pi(0), pi(+)n and pi(0)n systems are presented in the photon energy range from 0.7 to 1.5 GeV. These results are in good agreement with the 2 pi-MAID calculations.