Observation of Coherent Optical Transition Radiation in the LCLS Linac

The beam diagnostics in the linac for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray FEL project at SLAC includes optical transition radiation (OTR) screens for measurements of transverse and longitudinal beam properties. We report on observations of coherent light emission from the OTR screens (COTR) at visible wavelengths from the uncompressed and compressed electron beam at various stages in the accelerator.