Neutralized drift compression experiments (NDCX)

Intense ion beams offer an attractive approach to heating dense matter uniformly to extreme conditions, because their energy deposition is nearly classical and volumetric. Simultaneous transverse and longitudinal beam compression in a neutralizing plasma medium, along with rapid beam acceleration, are being studied as a means of generating such beams for warm dense matter (WDM) and high energy density physics (HEDP) experiments, as well as for inertial fusion. Recent experiments on transverse and longitudinal compression demonstrated significant enhancements in beam intensity. In parallel with the beam compression studies, a new accelerator concept, the Pulse Line Ion Accelerator (PLIA), potentially offers cost-effective high-gradient ion beam acceleration at high line charge density. We describe experimental results on beam neutralization, and neutralized drift compression from a series of experiments. We also describe first the beam dynamics validation experiments exploring the PLIA.