ABSTRACT
Fast ions are an ideal driver for inertial fusion microplasmas. The stopping power is high, in particular for heavy ions, and is sufficiently uniform so that the range is a well-defined quantity. Beams of uniformly moving ions are carriers of energy of a very low entropy; this energy can be deposited into matter to produce very high temperatures. Whereas lasers can produce beams for a fantastic phase-spatial power density, for heavy-ion beams this is yet the state of the art, but it has a great potential for development. The required beam intensities are huge. In particular, if there is a set of particles, a surface in phase-space is constructed containing them all, the volume within that surface remains constant. The motion of sets of particles which travel close to the optical axis of the system, or close to stability centers, can be described linearly, i.e., by linear matrices.
