Simulation techniques for heavy ion fusion chamber transport

Heavy ion-driven inertial confinement fusion requires efficient transport of the ion beam over several meters from the entrance of the accelerator to the target. Currently considered transport modes with high perveance beams require significant charge and current neutralization that will likely require pre-existing dense plasmas. We have developed a hybrid implicit algorithm to treat dense plasmas accurately. Using this algorithm, simulations of neutralized ballistic transport show improved transport efficiency for a 4-GeV, 4-kA Pb ion beam by including a 10(13)cm(-3) plasma at initialization. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.