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Ignition and pusher adiabat

Journal Article · · Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion
In the last five years, large amounts of high quality experimental data in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) were produced at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). From the NIF data, we have significantly advanced our scientific understanding of the physics of thermonuclear (TN) ignition in ICF and identified the critical physical issues important to achieve ignition, such as implosion energetics, pusher adiabat, tamping effects in fuel confinement, and confinement time. In this article, we will present recently developed TN ignition theory and implosion scaling laws [1, 2] characterizing the thermodynamic properties of the hot spot and the TN ignition metrics at NIF. We compare our theoretical predictions with NIF data with good agreement between theory and experiments. We will also demonstrate the fundamental effects of the pusher adiabat on the energy partition between the cold shell and the hot deuterium-tritium and on the neutron yields of ICF capsules. Applications [3–5] to NIF experiments and physical explanations of the discrepancies among theory, data and simulations will be presented. In our theory, the actual adiabat of the cold DT fuel can be inferred from neutron image data of a burning capsule. With the experimentally inferred hot spot mix, the CH mix in the cold fuel could be estimated, as well as the preheat. Lastly, possible path forwards to reach high yields are discussed.
Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396; W-7405-ENG-36
OSTI ID:
1440442
Report Number(s):
LA-UR--17-31103
Journal Information:
Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, Journal Name: Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 60; ISSN 0741-3335
Publisher:
IOP ScienceCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (2)

Analysis of NIF scaling using physics informed machine learning journal January 2020
Effects of asymmetry and hot-spot shape on ignition capsules journal August 2018

Figures / Tables (8)


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