AMO Science with fsec x-ray pulses at the LCLS

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), a linac-drive x-ray free electron laser (XFEL), is currently under construction at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) with funding from the Office of Basic Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy. When completed in 2008, the LCLS will provide $10^{12} - 10^{13}$ x-ray photons at energies from 800$-$8000~eV in 230~fsec pulses at 120~Hz with unprecedented flux and brightness. This regime of power and energy is completely unexplored in atomic, molecular and optical sciences (AMOS) and is expected to provide many new discoveries in light-matter explorations. An AMOS facility at the LCLS is being designed to capitalize on the unique high flux, high field and high temporal resolution of the x-ray pulses generated by the light source. A brief overview of the LCLS facility will be presented along with a description of the AMO research capabilities envisioned. An AMOS working group comprised of many researchers at several institutions has contributed to the design parameters for the instrumentation under design.