Overview of US heavy-ion fusion progress and plans

Abstract

Significant experimental and theoretical progress has been made in the US heavy-ion fusion program on high-current sources, injectors, transport, final focusing, chambers and targets for high-energy density physics (HEDP) and inertial fusion energy (IFE) driven by induction linac accelerators. One focus of present research is the beam physics associated with quadrupole focusing of intense, space–charge dominated heavy-ion beams, including gas and electron cloud effects at high currents, and the study of long-distance-propagation effects such as emittance growth due to field errors in scaled experiments. A second area of emphasis in present research is the introduction of background plasma to neutralize the space charge of intense heavy-ion beams and assist in focusing the beams to a small spot size. In the near future, research will continue in the above areas, and a new area of emphasis will be to explore the physics of neutralized beam compression and focusing to high intensities required to heat targets to high-energy density conditions as well as for inertial fusion energy.