Important atomic collision processes in the heavy ion inertial fusion program

Work on this contract has been directed to determine theoretically the charge changing cross sections needed to assess the feasibility of using a synchrotron accelerator in the heavy ion fusion program. Two systems were studied in detail, Cs+ + Cs+ and Xe+8 + Xe+8, for which at a collision energy of 100 keV we predict the charge changing cross sections will be 4 x 10-16 cm2 and 1 x 10-16 cm2, respectively. With reference to collisional processes occurring in the target region of a heavy ion fusion reactor, a model was developed to predict the ionization cross sections of a buffer gas upon passage of a multiply charged ion