Mitigation of two-plasmon decay in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion through the manipulation of ion-acoustic and Langmuir wave damping

Journal Article · Wed May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4807036· OSTI ID:22218620

Myatt, J. F.; Short, R. W.; Maximov, A. V. ^[1]; Vu, H. X. ^[2]; DuBois, D. F.; Russell, D. A. ^[3]; Zhang, J. ^[1]

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1. Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, 250 East River Road, Rochester, New York 14623-1299 (United States)
2. Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093-0407 (United States)
3. Lodestar Research Corporation, 2400 Central Avenue, P-5, Boulder, Colorado 80301 (United States)

The extended Zakharov model of the two-plasmon decay instability in an inhomogeneous plasma [D. F. DuBois et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 3983 (1995); D. A. Russell and D. F. DuBois, Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 428 (2001)] is further generalized to include the evolution of the electron distribution function in the quasi-linear approximation [cf., e.g., K. Y. Sanbonmatsu et al. Phys. Plasmas 7, 2824 (2000); D. A. Russell et al., paper presented at the Workshop on SRS/SBS Saturation, Wente Vineyards, Livermore, CA, 2–5 April 2002]. This makes it possible to investigate anomalous absorption of laser light and hot electron production due to the two-plasmon decay instability of multiple overlapping electromagnetic waves. Scalings of hot-electron production in the (stationary) nonlinearly saturated regime relevant to recent experiments [B. Yaakobi et al., Phys. Plasmas 19, 012704 (2012); D. H. Froula et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 165003 (2012)] have been obtained. They indicate a sensitivity to ion-acoustic wave (IAW) damping and to the collisional absorption of Langmuir waves. Such a sensitivity might be exploited in inertial confinement fusion target design by the use of mid-Z ablators.

• OSTI ID: 22218620
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 20, Issue 5; Other Information: (c) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
APPROXIMATIONS
DAMPING
DECAY INSTABILITY
DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS
ELECTRON BEAM TARGETS
ELECTRONS
ICF DEVICES
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
INHOMOGENEOUS PLASMA
ION ACOUSTIC WAVES
ION BEAM TARGETS
LASER TARGETS
LASERS
LIGHT TRANSMISSION
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
PLASMONS
SOUND WAVES
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
VISIBLE RADIATION