Final compression beamline systems for heavy ion fusion drivers

Abstract

AbstractWe have identified a general final compression section for HIF drivers, the section between accelerator and the target. The beams are given a head to tail velocity tilt at the beginning of the section for longitudinal compression, while going through bends that direct it to the target at specific angle. The aim is to get the beams compressed while maintaining a small centroid off-set after the bends. We used a specific example, 1 MJ driver with 500 MeV Rubidium + 1 ion beams. We studied the effect of minimizing dispersion using different bend strategies, and came up with a beamline point design with adiabatic bends. We also identified some factors that lead to emittance growth as well as the minimum pulse length and spot size on the target.