Interaction of a high power relativistic electron beam with a dense magnetized plasma

Electron beam-plasma interaction belongs to traditional topics discussed regularly on this Conference. During the past decade the main interest in this field was focused on high-power relativistic electron beams (REBs). Imposing characteristics of REBs have stimulated their applications in various branches of physics and technology, namely in fusion research, collective particle acceleration, relativistic microwave electronics, powerful gas lasers, sources of soft X-ray radiation etc. In this talk we will briefly discuss some results achieved in study of the collective energy transfer from a REB to a dense magnetized plasma under the condition that the mean free path of beam electrons is much larger than the system length. This study is closely related to the concept of fusion systems based on long open traps. In these systems a plasma column of length about 100 m with density of 1017 cm-3 immersed in magnetic field of 10 T is heated up to a temperature of 5-10 keV by a high power REB injected along magnetic field lines. (orig./KP)