Compression of intense proton beams

The possibility offocusing of an intense neutralized proton beam with an area compression coefficient of around 10⁴ is analyzed numerically for protons energies 10–30 ke V and beam current of 1 kA. A proton beam is generated in a vacuum diode with a multipoint explosive emission cathode and adsorbate anode. To achieve the required compression coefficient despite the rather high beam divergence of around 30 mrad caused by the inhomogeneity of the electric field near the surface of the multipoint cathode a combination of ballistic focusing and magnetic compression was used The parameters of such a focusing channel were determined The possible influence of electrons neutralizing the proton beam space charge on the compression efficiency was estimated.