Chamber transport of 'foot' pulses for heavy-ion fusion

Indirect-drive targets for heavy-ion fusion must initially be heated by 'foot' pulses that precede the main heating pulses by tens of nanoseconds. These pulses typically have a lower energy and perveance than the main pulses, and the fusion-chamber environment is different from that seen by later pulses. The preliminary particle-in-cell simulations of foot pulses here examine the sensitivity of the beam focusing to ion-beam perveance, background-gas density, and pre-neutralization by a plasma near the chamber entry port