Computer Simulation of High Power Ion Beams Interaction with Matter

When high-power ion beams (HPIB) collides with matter, it generates plasma with parameters of a wide range, staring with those well mastered in physics and gas discharge technologies and ending with those appropriate to such natural systems as star nucleus and thermonuclear systems in feasible power projects based on the controlled inertial thermonuclear synthesis. We are interested in a fairly wide range of beam power densities (from I GW/cm2 to 10 TW/cm2). This paper describes one mathematical model in one dimension (a plane geometry is assumed) and one model in two dimensions (r- and z-coordinates). The models are completed by wide- range equations of state for real matter (construction materials) and supplemented with additional equations describing rheological, thermophysical, and optical properties of solid media under consideration (in various phase states from solid to plasma, including states of a strongly nonideal plasma). On the base of the continual approach, mechanical destruction of materials due to tensile strain generated by rarefaction waves is taken into account. In modeling the action of ion beams of moderate intensity (I < 10 GW/cm2) on metal targets, elastoplastic properties are taken into account, and in describing the action of ion beams with intensities I > 10 GW/cm2 (in the two- dimensional model based on the large-particle technique) heat transfer, including radiational processes, is considered. Opportunities offered by contemporary computer simulation techniques in the field of interaction between HPIB and matter are demonstrated, in particular, a possibility of simulating hypervelocity impact with the help of HPIB has been shown and the necessary conditions have been determined. The results of our computer simulation may be interesting from the viewpoint of some technological applications of HPIB, for example, pulsed destruction and strengthening of construction materials, pulsed ion implantation and etc. [1].