Radial electron beam autoaccelerator for inertial confinement fusion

A possible approach to particle-beam fusion is to use a series of electron-beam driven coaxial cavities as an autoaccelerator to produce a short, high-energy electron pulse which in turn drives an ion diode. A theoretical study of such a system is made, using an electromagnetic particle code, and an equivalent circuit model for the whole system. The particle simulations indicate that a beam-to-wave conversion efficiency of up to 70% is possible for a single cavity, with careful design. Circuit modeling studies suggest that this implies an overall system efficiency which is somewhat low for reactor applications, but of possible interest for single pulse laboratory experiments.