The results of ID-ERA and 2D-TIGR, OMEGA codes calculations of compression and burn of indirect-driven targets for the thermonuclear ignition and Engineering Test Facility are presented. The possibility to obtain high-energy yield of G > 100 with driver energy of Ed = 5−10 MJ by using the heavy-ion one-beam accelerator as the main driver and powerful laser for fast ignition of thermonuclear detonation of cylindrical targets is pointed out.

One of the difficulties of light ion beam fusion is to propagate the beam in the reactor cavity and to focus the beam on the target. The light ion beam has some local divergence angle because there are several causes for divergence at the diode. The ion beam propagates with a speed of one tenth of light speed. With this high speed, the leading edge of the ion beam cannot be charge-neutralized due to the delay of neutralization by the inertia of thermal electrons in the background plasma. The electrostatic force induced by this mechanism at the leading edge causes the beam divergence during propagation. To confine the beam in a small radius during propagation, the magnetic field must play a role. Here the electron beam is proposed to be launched simultaneously with the launch of a proton beam. If the electron beam has the excess current, the beam induces the magnetic field in the negative azimuthal direction, which confines the ion beam in a small radius by the electrostatic field, as well as the electron beam by the Lorentz force. The metal guide around the beam path helps the beam confinement and reduces the total amount of magnetic field energy induced by the electron current. Simulation shows that the proton beam with the comoving electron beam propagates in a small radius confined in the metal guide.

Compton scattering of laser light by an electron beam at large angles, in particular at 90°, produces coherent hard radiation if the density of the electron beam is high enough. In this case, the intensity of the scattered radiation is greatly enhanced in a small cone around the forward direction of propagation of the electron beam. As an example, the production of 1-KeV coherent X rays is discussed.

A classical linear theory is used to compare large synchrotron sources to a rf linear accelerator employed as a VUV/X-ray source. Comparisons are made on a per-pulse basis. It is demonstrated that the linear accelerator as an X-ray source is comparable to large synchrotron accelerators with wiggler insertion devices at the experiment. Applications to lithography, X-ray microscopy, X-ray spectroscopy and detector calibration are examined. Excluding lithography, the linear accelerator with an appropriate laser source is a useful source of X rays for these applications. As verification, classical results are compared with quantum mechanical results and are shown to be in good agreement.

The generation of relativistic electrons by nonlinear coupling of a laser beam to an under-dense plasma is simulated. An Eulerian Vlasov code is used, which enables direct solution of the fully nonlinear Vlasov-Maxwell system in real space. The impact of stimulated Raman and Compton scattering on the electron velocity distribution is investigated. Simulations show that electrons can be accelerated to energies of several MeV. The role of induced scattering processes is analyzed in detail, using electromagnetic field spectra and electron phase-space information as diagnostics. The effects of density gradients in the back-ground plasma are also quantified.