Intense ions for high energy density in matter research

Complete text of publication follows. Investigation of high energy density phenomena in the laboratory offers the advantage of controlled and reproducible conditions. Lasers, pulsed power machines, high explosives and intense particle beams from accelerators are commonly used to generate high energy density states. Among these techniques heavy ion beams are relatively new. Intense heavy ion beams are excellent tool to generate uniform large-volume plasmas with solid state density. The energy deposition of ion beams into a non-ionized target is a reasonably well understood process and direct heating of a well-defined extended volume is achieved by a rather homogeneous energy deposition. High precision experiments to study the properties of bulk matter require a detailed knowledge about the exact amount of energy deposited into the sample as well as the spatial and time distribution of the energy inside the target volume. This demand is intrinsically fulfilled by the very nature of the interaction processes of heavy ions with matter themselves. The highest energy deposition occurs at the end of the range. This regime is commonly called the Bragg peak and its position is precisely determined by the total ion energy. Higher beam energy would cause the Bragg peak to shift out of the target. In this case the target is heated in a very homogeneous manner. If the ion beam is intense enough, the beam heated target volume is transformed into dense plasma. Thus intense ion beams open new opportunities to investigate the interaction phenomena of heavy ion beams with dense plasma and they allow to study the hydrodynamic and radiative properties of beam heated matter with high precision experiments, and improved or complementary techniques. In order to achieve this ambitious goal it is also necessary to include the development of new diagnostic techniques and the design of appropriate heavy ion targets. The heavy ion synchrotrons ITEP-TWAC at ITEP, Moscow and SIS18 at the Gesellschaft fuer Schwerionenforschung (GSI), Darmstadt, are unique facilities which deliver intense beams of different heavy ion species. These beams have enabled important research in the field of HED matter during last years. GSI has proposed the construction of a new synchrotron ring SIS100, which will deliver a heavy ion beam with a much higher intensity than the upgraded SIS18 and ITEP-TWAC facilities. The new facility with the 100 Tm heavy-ion synchrotron and a bunch compression system for the generation of very intense short ion bunches below 50 ns pulse length will extend the available beam deposition power from the current level of 50 GW/g by more than two orders of magnitude up to 12,000 GW/g. This will open up unprecedented opportunities for the production of ion beam heated and/or compressed plasmas.