High current magnetized plasma discharges and electron beams for capture and cooling of charged leptons and hadrons

Nowadays most magnetic lenses used to capture and to focus pions and muons utilize azimuthal magnetic fields generated by large axial currents, like horns or lithium rods (or even a Z-pinch at GSI). Capture and focusing angle is proportional to the product of the current and length of the lens. State-of-the-art for these lenses is no more than 750 kA and 70 cm. A meter long, multi-MA, magnetized axial discharges were generated in the early days of fusion. Lenses based of such devices can increase the capture angle of pions, e.g., by more than a factor of 2. Electron beam cooling is presently achieved in storage rings by having charged particles interact with a comoving electron beam. In these devices, typical parameters are electron beam currents of about 1 A, an interaction length of about 1 meter, and interaction time of about 30 msec. Multi-MA electron beams can be used for single-pass final stage cooling in a number of machines. Calculations for some applications, as well as other advantages indicate that these schemes deserve further more serious consideration