The fine-focusing capability of a current-carrying, "active" plasma lens has been demonstracted for the first time. A cylindrically symmetric argon discharge plasma pulsed with an oscillating current of over 20 kA in amplitude served as a current conducting medium. With this plasma lens has been demonstrated for the first time. A cylindrically symmetric argon discharge plasma pulsed with an oscillating current of over 20 kA in amplitude served as a current conducting medium. With this plasma lens the diameter of an incident 2.2-GeV gold ion beam from the linear accelerator UNILAC at GSI-Darmstadt was focused from initially 10 to about 0.25 mm, at a focal length of only 140 mm. The gradient of the azimuthal magnetic field exceeded 120 T/m. The striking features of this first-order and strong-focusing plasma lens favor its use as a precise high-gradient focusing device for high-energy charged particles.
The main objective of the experimental plasma physics activities at the Gesellschaft fur Schwerionenforschung (GSI) is the interaction processes of heavy ions with dense ionized matter. Gas discharge plasma targets were used for energy loss and charge state measurements in a regime of electron density and temperature up to 10 19 cm" 3 and 20 eV, respectively. Progress has been achieved in the understanding of charge-exchange processes in fully ionized hydrogen plasma. An improved model taking excitation-autoionization processes into account has removed most of the discrepancies of previous theoretical descriptions. Furthermore, it was found that the energy loss of the ion beam serves as an excellent diagnostic tool for measuring the electron density in partially ionized plasmas such as argon. The experience with these methods will be used in the future to diagnose dense laser produced plasmas. A setup with a 100 J/5 GW Nd:glass laser, currently under construction, will provide access to density range up to 10 21 cm" 3 and temperatures of more than 100 eV. To reach electron densities near solid-state density (10 23 cm" 3 ), heavy ion heated frozen rare gas crystals were used. The first hydrodynamic motion of ion heated solid material was observed. Vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) spectroscopy was applied to diagnose these strongly coupled nonideal plasmas.
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