Effects of beam-plasma instabilities on neutralized propagation of intense ion beams in background plasma

Abstract

The streaming of an intense ion beam relative to background plasma can cause the development of fast electrostatic collective instabilities. The plasma waves produced by the two-stream instability modify the ion beam current neutralization and produce non-linear average forces which can lead to defocusing of the ion beam. Recently, a theoretical model describing the average de-focusing forces acting on the beam ions has been developed, and the scalings of the forces with beam-plasma parameters have been identified (Startsev et al. in press[1]). These scalings can be used in the development of realistic ion beam compression scenarios in present and next-generation ion-beam-driven high energy density physics and heavy ion fusion experiments. In this paper the results of particle-in-cell simulations of ion beam propagation through neutralizing background plasma for NDCX-II parameters are presented. The simulation results show that the two-stream instability can play a significant role in the ion beam dynamics. The effects of velocity tilt on the development of the instability and ion beam compressibility for typical NDCX-II parameters are also simulated. It is shown that the two-stream instability may be an important factor in limiting the maximum longitudinal compression of the ion beam.