Ion–ion charge exchange cross-sections for heavy ion fusion

In heavy ion fusion the compression of the DT-pellet requires adequate accelerators and storage rings for the driving projectile ions. The design of such storage rings crucially depends on the expected particle losses due to charge-changing collisions between the stored ions. Although the kinetic energy of driver ions in a heavy ion fusion scenario is in the order of several GeV, the relative kinetic energy of intrabeam ion–ion collisions is only in the keV region and therefore attainable in an ion–ion crossed-beams experiment. In this paper we report on the investigation of charge exchange in collisions between quadruply charged xenon and bismuth ions. With the knowledge of these cross-sections we were able to estimate the particle losses from a 100 Tm synchrotron which is one of the possible options for a future GSI upgrade. The relevance of such a synchrotron for plasma physics and HIF is given by the possible intensity of 1013 ions and approximately 40 kJ bunch energy.