Experimental investigations of wire-guided transport for light-ion-beam ICF

Summary form only given. Wire-guided transport is under investigation to determine its suitability for the LMF facility. This scheme uses a small-diameter current-carrying wire to produce the azimuthal field that provides radial confinement of the beam ions. A neutral gas surrounds the wire to provide charge- and current-neutralization of the ion beam during propagation in the transport system. The return current for the central wire is carried by a concentric array of wires outside the ion beam. The transport characteristics are being investigated with proton beams from the US Naval Research Laboratory Gamble II accelerator. Of particular interest are beam transport efficiency, beam expansion after transport, and the effects of the return current wire geometry. The ¹⁹F(p,αγ)¹⁶O and ⁷Li(p,γ), ⁶³Cu(γ,n)⁶²Cu nuclear reactions from the proton beam striking a LiF target are used concurrently to determine the transport efficiency of the ion beam, while shadowbox techniques are used to sample the phase-space distribution of the ion beam