Scaling laws for Mirrortron ion accelerators

Summary form only given. As each mirror coil in the Mirrortron is pulsed on, the hot electrons, being repelled by the mirror field, set up strong local potentials through the usual quasi-neutral plasma response. Most important is the theoretically predicted result that these fields can be precisely controlled from outside the plasma by shaping and timing the pulsed mirror fields. Using this quasi-neutral assumption, it is possible to predict both the scaling laws for Mirrortron ion accelerators and the screening out of the space charge fields of the ion beam itself that will occur within the plasma. It is this screening effect that should permit the acceleration of much higher beam currents than is possible with vacuum-field-based ion accelerators. Augmenting this high beam current capability is the circumstance that much of the energy required to accelerate a high-current-beam ion bunch can be derived in situ from kinetic energy stored up in the hot electron population, and therefore in large part need not be derived from the applied pulsed mirror fields. Using the scaling laws derived, studies were made of the key parameters of (1) a 10-GeV, 1-MJ, heavy-ion accelerator such as might be employed as a driver for inertial-fusion purposes and (2) a scaled-down bench-top Mirrortron that could be built to explore many of the critical physics issues, such as space-charge screening and beam emittance control, that would be encountered in a full-scale accelerator