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This paper reports an overview of the extensive theoretical work that has been carried out over the past few years to explore the capabilities of intense beams of energetic heavy ions to study High Energy Density (HED) states in matter. This work has shown that an intense ion beam can be a very efficient driver for disparate experimental schemes suitable to study this important field of research. These include HIHEX [Heavy Ion Heating and EXpansion] that involves generation of required HED states by isochoric and uniform heating of matter by the ion beam that is followed by isentropic expansion. Another proposed experimental set up is named LAPLAS that stands for LAboratory PLAnetary Sciences. This latter experiment has been designed to generate physical conditions that are expected to exist in the interiors of the giant planets. This is achieved by a low-entropy compression of the sample material (hydrogen or ice). A third scheme involves a ramp (shockless) compression of a test material which will allow one to investigate the material properties, like yield strength, under dynamic conditions.

The fifth International Conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (IFSA2007)