Development and application of RF techniques for formation of preionized plasma in the target chamber

Abstract

Recent heavy ion fusion reactor concepts require multiple beam focusing beyond the space-charge limit. Propagating the beams in dilute plasma potentially can achieve charge neutralization. Here, we apply well known plasma waves to the formation of large-volume uniform plasmas to achieve the required plasmas for charge neutralization. A number of plasma waves will be considered including whistlers, electron cyclotron, and helicon waves. The goal is to produce a large-volume plasma design that will be tested and integrated into near-term ion beam focusing experiments.