Collective Ion Acceleration through Temporal Modulation of Relativistic-Electron-Beam Energy

Abstract

A new method is proposed for collectively accelerating bunches of ions with an intense relativistic-electron beam 0 By varying the beam energy in time, acceleration of a slow Doppler-shifted cyclotron wave can be accomplished, without accompanying degradation of the beam equilibrium. Test-particle calculations employing this acceleration scheme indicate performance which is highly competitive with other collective-ion-acceleration mechanisms.