Theory and simulations of intense laser cooled coasting beams

For an accurate investigation of the interaction between an intense ion beam and laser light, the dynamical effect on the ions due to laser cooling is added in the kinetic description of the beam. This leads to a modified Vlasov equation, which accounts for space-charge effects and for cooling. The numerical solution of this model provides a suitable tool to study the dynamics of a laser cooled beam. Results from simulations are used here to show both the validity of a perturbative analysis on the kinetic equation and the effects of intra-beam scattering in the cooling process.