The Mirrortron ion accelerator concept

Summary form only given, as follows. The Mirrortron accelerator uses a sequence of regions of high transient electric field, turned on in synchronism with the arrival of a bunched beam of ions, to accelerate ions. The production of the fields is described. Scaling laws derived for the use of Mirrortrons as heavy-ion drivers for inertial fusion have shown the possibility of achieving accelerating gradients approaching 100 MV/m, 100 times those obtained in the induction-type drivers presently being considered. The key technology for the Mirrortron, the generation of rapidly pulsed magnetic fields, has been developed for other applications. A proof-of-principle experiment utilizing this technology has been constructed.<>