Ion-ion charge exchange cross-sections for heavy ion fusion

In heavy ion fusion the compression of the DT-pellet requires adequate acce lerators and storage rings for the driving projectile ions. The design of s uch storage rings crucially depends on the expected particle losses due to charge-changing collisions between the stored ions. Although the kinetic en ergy of driver ions in a heavy ion fusion scenario is in the order of sever al GeV, the relative kinetic energy of intrabeam ion-ion collisions is only in the keV region and therefore attainable in an ion-ion crossed-beams exp eriment. In this paper we report on the investigation of charge exchange in collisions between quadruply charged xenon and bismuth ions. With the know ledge of these cross-sections we were able to estimate the particle losses from a 100 Tm synchrotron which is one of the possible options for a future GSI upgrade. The relevance of such a synchrotron for plasma physics and HI F is given by the possible intensity of 10(13) ions and approximately 40 kJ bunch energy. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.