Numerical simulation studies of the LBNL heavy-ion beam combiner experiment

Transverse beam combining is a cost-saving option employed in many designs for heavy-ion inertial fusion energy drivers. A major area of interest, both theoretically and experimentally, is the resultant transverse phase space dilution during the beam merging process. Currently, a prototype combining experiment is underway at LBNL and we have employed a variety of numerical descriptions to aid in both the initial design of the experiment as well as in the interpretation of the experimental data. These range from simple envelope codes to detailed 2- and 3-D PIC simulations. We compare the predictions of the different numerical models to each other and to experimental data at different longitudinal positions