A new code, BTRAC, is under development to determine whether a beam of
heavy ions can be focused to the necessary spot size radius of about
2 mm within an inertial confinement reactor chamber where the backgrou
nd gas densities are on the order of 10(14)-10(15) cm(-3) of lithium (
or equivalent). Beam transport is expected to be strongly affected by
stripping and collective plasma phenomena; if propagation is possible
in this regime, it could lead to simplified reactor designs. The beam
is modeled using a 2 1/2-dimensional particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation
code coupled with a Monte Carlo (MC) method for analyzing collisions.
The MC code follows collisions between the beam ions and neutral back
ground gas atoms that account for the generation of electrons and back
ground gas ions (ionization), and an increase in the charge state of t
he beam ions (stripping). The PIC code models the complete dynamics of
the interaction of the various charged particle species with the self
-generated electromagnetic fields. Details of the code model and preli
minary results are presented.