Limitations of Heavy Ion Synchrotron Acceleration for Inertial Fusion

The potential benefits from heavy ion inertial fusion motivate the rapid development of a program to test the principle.1,2,3 To define the program, accelerator parameters which have not hitherto been commonly considered must be studied interactively with basic questions of space charge limitations and charge exchange. Beam lifetime and power output efficiency may ultimately lead to a linear accelerator as the choice for an ignition device. For proof of principle, however, at power levels way beyond present inertial fusion experience, synchrotrons may have applicability at lower cost. The power and energy which can be delivered by the accelerating system to the reaction chamber are limited by space charge defocussing and intra beam charge exchange scattering, both of which are beam density dependent. These put constraints on linac injector energy, synchrotron aperture, synchrotron magnetic rigidity, acceleration time, ion species and charge to mass ratio. The accelerator system considered is classical. A linear accelerator injects into a synchrotron which accelerates the ion beam to the full energy delivered to the target. The maximum energy deliverable by a synchrotron is treated in section I. The targetting parameters and the energy gained through synchrotron acceleration completely determine the synchrotron aperture. These are discussed in sections II and III. The ion range in material is treated in section IV. The problem of intrabeam scattering is considered in section V. Finally, in section VI is a discussion of examples to meet specified goals.