Effects of Atmospheric Inhomogeneity on Long Range Ion Beam Propagation

A procedure has been developed to determine the particle energy and current for long range, a high power flux ion beams. The smallest practical energy for a proton beam was found to be 1 GeV for beam propagation between the position of a high altitude aircraft and 100 km. This beam required a current of about 500 A to suppress extensive radial expansion. A theory of radial beam expansion over decades of inhomogeneity is proposed. It defines a scattering quantity W in the high density segment of the beam trajectory. W is related to the relative amount of radial spread due to scattering occurring within a betatron wavelength. The properties of the charge neutralization channel required for effective beam propagation are considered. It is shown that neutralizing electrons may respond to the bare ion beam charge differently at different locations on the trajectory. This has important implications in the creation of such channels. The effects of an imperfect neutralization channel on beam aiming is discussed.