Improving cryogenic deuterium tritium implosion performance on OMEGA

Journal Article · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2013 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4805088· OSTI ID:1172376

Sangster, T. C. ^[1]; Goncharov, V. N. ^[1]; Betti, R. ^[1]; Radha, P. B. ^[1]; Boehly, T. R. ^[1]; Casey, D. T. ^[2]; Collins, T. J. ^[1]; Craxton, R. S. ^[1]; Delettrez, J. A. ^[1]; Edgell, D. H. ^[1]; Epstein, R. ^[1]; Forrest, C. J. ^[1]; Frenje, J. A. ^[3]; Froula, D. H. ^[1]; Gatu-Johnson, M. ^[3]; Glebov, Y. Yu. ^[1]; Harding, D. R. ^[1]; Hohenberger, M. ^[1]; Hu, S. X. ^[1]; Igumenshchev, I. V. ^[1] ; Janezic, R. ^[1]; Kelly, J. H. ^[1]; Kessler, T. J. ^[1]; Kingsley, C. ^[1]; Kosc, T. Z. ^[1]; Knauer, J. P. ^[1]; Loucks, S. J. ^[1]; Marozas, J. A. ^[1]; Marshall, F. J. ^[1]; Maximov, A. V. ^[1]; McCrory, R. L. ^[1]; McKenty, P. W. ^[1]; Meyerhofer, D. D. ^[1]; Michel, D. T. ^[1]; Myatt, J. F. ^[1]; Petrasso, Richard D. ^[3]; Regan, S. P. ^[1]; Seka, W. ^[1]; Shmayda, W. T. ^[1]; Short, R. W. ^[1]; Shvydky, A. ^[1]; Skupsky, S. ^[1]; Soures, J. M. ^[1]; Stoeckl, C. ^[1]; Theobald, W. ^[1]; Versteeg, V. ^[1]; Yaakobi, B. ^[1]; Zuegel, J. D. ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Rochester, NY (United States). Lab. for Laser Energetics
2. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
3. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Plasma Science and Fusion Center

A flexible direct-drive target platform is used to implode cryogenic deuterium–tritium (DT) capsules on the OMEGA laser [Boehly et al., Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)]. The goal of these experiments is to demonstrate ignition hydrodynamically equivalent performance where the laser drive intensity, the implosion velocity, the fuel adiabat, and the in-flight aspect ratio (IFAR) are the same as those for a 1.5-MJ target [Goncharov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 165001 (2010)] designed to ignite on the National Ignition Facility [Hogan et al., Nucl. Fusion 41, 567 (2001)]. The results from a series of 29 cryogenic DT implosions are presented. The implosions were designed to span a broad region of design space to study target performance as a function of shell stability (adiabat) and implosion velocity. Ablation-front perturbation growth appears to limit target performance at high implosion velocities. Target outer-surface defects associated with contaminant gases in the DT fuel are identified as the dominant perturbation source at the ablation surface; performance degradation is confirmed by 2D hydrodynamic simulations that include these defects. A trend in the value of the Lawson criterion [Betti et al., Phys. Plasmas 17, 058102 (2010)] for each of the implosions in adiabat–IFAR space suggests the existence of a stability boundary that leads to ablator mixing into the hot spot for the most ignition-equivalent designs.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Plasma Science and Fusion Center
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: NA0002035
• OSTI ID: 1172376
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 20, Issue 5; ISSN 1070-664X
• Publisher: American Institute of Physics (AIP)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY