Effects of errors in velocity tilt on maximum longitudinal compression during neutralized drift compression of intense beam pulses: II. Analysis of experimental data of the Neutralized Drift Compression eXperiment-I (NDCX-I)

Neutralized drift compression offers an effective means for particle beam focusing and current amplification with applications to heavy ion fusion. In the Neutralized Drift Compression eXperiment-I (NDCX-I), a non-relativistic ion beam pulse is passed through an inductive bunching module that produces a longitudinal velocity modulation. Due to the applied velocity tilt, the beam pulse compresses during neutralized drift. The ion beam pulse can be compressed by a factor of more than 100; however, errors in the velocity modulation affect the compression ratio in complex ways. We have performed a study of how the longitudinal compression of a typical NDCX-I ion beam pulse is affected by the initial errors in the acquired velocity modulation. Without any voltage errors, an ideal compression is limited only by the initial energy spread of the ion beam, ΔΕb. In the presence of large voltage errors, δU⪢ΔEb, the maximum compression ratio is found to be inversely proportional to the geometric mean of the relative error in velocity modulation and the relative intrinsic energy spread of the beam ions. Although small parts of a beam pulse can achieve high local values of compression ratio, the acquired velocity errors cause these parts to compress at different times, limiting the overall compression of the ion beam pulse.