DEVICE FOR EXTRACTING AND TRANSPORTING A HIGH-CURRENT ELECTRON BEAM IN LONGITUDINAL INHOMOGENEOUS PLASMA.

The article describes a device for extracting the high-current relativistic electron beam of an accelerator into a transporting channel which is initially filled with a plasma. The device is a single-unit coaxial plasma source and the electron gun of a high-current accelerator. The plasma source generates plasma in a metallic drift tube, with the plasma concentration reaching at most 5 multiplied by (times) 10**1**4 cm** minus **3 at a gas pressure of 6 multiplied by (times) 10** minus **3 torr. The plasma source makes it possible to obtain various gradients of the plasma concentration in the direction of beam propagation. The efficiency of transporting an electron beam (current 20 kA, electron energy 1 MeV) reaches 80% at a propagation path of 80 cm.