Analytical Solutions for the Nonlinear Longitudinal Drift Compression (Expansion) of Intense Charged Particle Beams

To achieve high focal spot intensities in heavy ion fusion, the ion beam must be compressed longitudinally by factors of ten to one hundred before it is focused onto the target. The longitudinal compression is achieved by imposing an initial velocity profile tilt on the drifting beam. In this paper, the problem of longitudinal drift compression of intense charged particle beams is solved analytically for the two important cases corresponding to a cold beam, and a pressure-dominated beam, using a one-dimensional warm-fluid model describing the longitudinal beam dynamics.