Collective Longitudinal Motion in Intense Ion Beams

Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) using high energy heavy ion beams requires tight focussing of the igniting ion beams in longitudinal, as well as transverse, space at the pellet target. This sets significant requirements for stability in longitudinal motion. It has been previously noted that this motion can contain significant resistive wall instability. Results of numerical simulations of this instability in perturbed bunched beams are presented and analyzed. It is found that reflection of perturbations off bunch ends is distorted and delayed by space charge forces and that "soliton" waves can appear after reflection.