HIDIF - AN APPROACH TO HIGH-REPETITION-RATE INERTIAL FUSION WITH HEAVY-IONS

The goal of the HIDIF study, carried out within the framework of a Eur opean Study Group, is to demonstrate the feasibility of an RF linac an d storage ring based scheme for high-repetition rate ignition consiste nt with an indirectly driven low-gain target. Key issues are the contr ol of space-charge effects in the driver to minimize beam loss and emi ttance growth up to final focusing. It is shown that the driver can pr ovide the power to ignite a two-converter reference target at 3 MJ tot al energy using a focal spot radius of 1.7 mm. The problem of efficien cy of the HIDIF-scheme in the coupling to X-rays is discussed. (C) 199 8 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.