Key scientific results from recent experiments, modeling tools, and heavy ion accelerator research are summarized that explore ways to investigate the properties of high energy density matter in heavy-ion-driven targets, in particular, strongly-coupled plasmas at 0.01 to 0.1 times solid density for studies of warm dense matter, which is a frontier area in high energy density physics. Pursuit of these near-term objectives has resulted in many innovations that will ultimately benefit heavy ion inertial fusion energy. These include: neutralized ion beam compression and focusing, which hold the promise of greatly improving the stage between the accelerator and the target chamber in a fusion power plant; and the Pulse Line Ion Accelerator (PLIA), which may lead to compact, low-cost modular linac drivers.

We report on an ongoing study on modular Heavy Ion Fusion drivers. The modular driver is characterized by 10 to 20 nearly identical induction linacs, each carrying a single high current beam. In this scheme, the Integrated Research Experiment (IRE) can be one of the full size induction linacs. Hence, this approach offers significant advantages in terms of driver development path. For beam transport, these modules use solenoids which are capable of carrying high line charge densities, even at low energies. A new injector concept allows compression of the beam to high line densities right at the source. The final drift compression is performed in a plasma, in which the large repulsive space charge effects are neutralized. Finally, the beam is transversely compressed onto the target, using either external solenoids or current-carrying channels (in the Assisted Pinch Mode of beam propagation). We will report on progress towards a self-consistent point design from injector to target. Considerations of driver architecture, chamber environment as well as the methodology for meeting target requirements of spot size, pulse shape and symmetry will also be described. Finally, some near-term experiments to address the key scientific issues will be discussed.

And the Dog Barks On... Still... Still standing... Eric's come through hell to stand here, on his own two feet, but who's to say he's got a steady footing? Crack... and the ground might split in two and swallow him up... Crack... It's a time of division, modern America is at war with itself, Eric's past is slipping ever-further away, old friends are Gone; or fading out of view as illness, Death, and mere time, threaten And there's Eric standing totteringly upright trying to keep it together, his family, his home, his French bulldog, Freud... as this time of division, upheaval, and tragedy, threatens to tear them away. So do you fall apart in times like these, or stick together? In modern America, in a time of division and, for some, despair, is it time to give up, or to press forward? Onwards? onwards... In the last book of the Barking Dog series, "the 21st Century Adult Fairy Tale" feels less "Fairy Tale" than ever before... And (yet) the Dog Barks On... Still..."

Join Eric Paul Lee as he takes his first steps on a "LEAVING LAS VEGAS" meets "MADAGASCAR" dystopian journey through modern American Life . When Eric's life fell apart, he bought a puppy. And though one scampering, howling, messing little friend couldn't make everything alright, it was a new start when his life had sort of stopped. One by one, he'd lost them all: his health, his lover, his man's-best-friend - the puppy's predecessor, Ziggy - one by one, until he had nothing left but his waterfront house in Miami and the memories that haunt it. Now, with the puppy by his side, Eric's got a lot of healing to do, but how to start? "And the Puppy Howls" is the story of being hit by everything modern American life can throw at you, and who, and what, comes next. See "unusual" things: Journey with Eric...

During the past two years, significant experimental and theoretical progress has been made in the US heavy ion fusion science program in longitudinal beam compression, ion-beam-driven warm dense matter, beam acceleration, high brightness beam transport; and advanced theory and numerical simulations. Innovations in longitudinal compression of intense ion beams by> 50 X propagating through background plasma enable initial beam target experiments in warm dense matter to begin within the next two years. They are assessing how these new techniques might apply to heavy ion fusion drivers for inertial fusion energy.

One approach for heating a target to ''Warm Dense Matter'' conditions (similar, for example, to the interiors of giant planets or certain stages in inertial confinement fusion targets), is to use intense ion beams as the heating source (see refs.[6] and [7] and references therein for motivation and accelerator concepts). By consideration of ion beam phase-space constraints, both at the injector, and at the final focus, and consideration of simple equations of state and relations for ion stopping, approximate conditions at the target foil may be calculated. Thus, target temperature and pressure may be calculated as a function of ion mass, ion energy, pulse duration, velocity tilt, and other accelerator parameters. We connect some of these basic parameters to help search the extensive parameter space including ion mass, ion energy, total charge in beam pulse, beam emittance, target thickness and density.

The U.S. Heavy Ion Fusion Virtual National Laboratory is proposing as its next experiment the Integrated Beam Experiment (IBX). All experiments in the U.S. Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) program up to this time have been of modest scale and have studied the physics of selected parts of a heavy ion driver. The mission of the IBX, a proof-of-principle experiment, is to demonstrate in one integrated experiment the transport from source to focus of a single heavy ion beam with driver-relevant parameters--i.e., the production, acceleration, compression, neutralization, and final focus of such a beam. Present preconceptual designs for the IBX envision a 5-10 MeV induction linac accelerating one K{sup +} beam. At injection (1.7 MeV) the beam current is approximately 500 mA, with pulse length of 300 ns. Design flexibility allows for several different acceleration and compression schedules, including the possibility of longitudinal (unneutralized) drift compression by a factor of up to ten in pulse length after acceleration, and neutralized drift compression. Physics requirements for the IBX, and preliminary physics and engineering design work are discussed in this paper.