Heating matter with heavy ion beams

Heating dense matter with intense beams from heavy ion accelerators to temperatures of 1–1000 eV is explored in terms of models and numerical simulation. The emphasis is on the target configuration, the region of plasma parameters that can be reached, on heavy ion energy deposition in hot dense matter, and on the hydrodynamic and radiative target response. Accelerator options for this purpose and their scaling with ion energy are discussed. Inertial confinement fusion driven by heavy ion beams is one of the major motivations for this research, and the present paper provides practical tools for future experiments in this direction.