Advances in U.S. heavy ion fusion science

During the past two years, the U.S. heavy ion fusion science program, a consortium of heavy ion research at the Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, has made significant experimental and theoretical progress in simultaneous transverse and longitudinal beam compression, ion-beam driven warm dense matter targets, high-brightness beam transport, advanced theory and numerical simulations, and heavy ion target physics for fusion. First experiments combining radial and longitudinal compression of intense ion beams propagating through background plasma resulted in on-axis beam densities increased by 700X at the focal plane. With further improvements planned in 2008, these results enable initial ion beam target experiments in warm dense matter to begin next year. We are assessing how these new techniques apply to higher-gain direct-drive targets for inertial fusion energy. (author)