In heavy ion fusion, the compression of the DT pellet requires
high intensity beams of ions in the gigaelectron volt energy
range. Charge-changing collisions due to intrabeam scattering
can have a high impact on the design of adequate accelerator
and storage rings. Not only do intensity losses have to be taken
into account, but also the deposition of energy on the beam
lines after bending magnets, for example, may be nonnegligible.
The center-of-mass energy for these intrabeam collisions is
typically in the kiloelectron volt range for beam energies in
the order of several gigaelectron volts. In this article, we
present experimental cross sections for charge transfer and
ionization in homonuclear collisions of Ar4+,
Kr4+, and Xe4+, and for charge transfer
only in homonuclear collisions of Pb4+ and
Bi4+. Using a hypothetical 100-Tm synchrotron as
an example, expected particle losses are calculated based on
the experimental data. The results are compared with expectations
for singly charged Bi+ ions, which are usually
considered for heavy ion fusion.