Stability and symmetry requirements of electron and ion beam fusion targets

Considerations of hydrodynamic stability impose severe restrictions on the design of electron and ion beam imploded fusion targets. Furthermore, in order to obtain a sufficiently spherical implosion, many target designs require electron or ion beams having a high degree of spherical symmetry. The stability and symmetry requirements of several recently proposed target designs were studied by numerical simulation using the computer program LASNEX. The ion beam targets studied are more vulnerable to instability than the electron beam targets.