Hole Boring in a DT Pellet and Fast-Ion Ignition with Ultraintense Laser Pulses

Journal Article · Fri Jan 16 00:00:00 EST 2009 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.102.025002· OSTI ID:21180118

Naumova, N; Mourou, G ^[1]; Schlegel, T ^[2]; Tikhonchuk, V T ^[3]; Labaune, C ^[4]; Sokolov, I V ^[5]

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1. Laboratoire d'Optique Appliquee, ENSTA, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, 91761 Palaiseau (France)
2. Helmholtzzentrum fuer Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Planckstrasse 1, D-64291 Darmstadt (Germany)
3. Centre Lasers Intenses et Applications, Universite Bordeaux 1 - CEA - CNRS, 33405 Talence Cedex (France)
4. Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses, CNRS - CEA - Ecole Polytechnique - Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex (France)
5. Space Physics Research Laboratory, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 (United States)

Recently achieved high intensities of short laser pulses open new prospects in their application to hole boring in inhomogeneous overdense plasmas and for ignition in precompressed DT fusion targets. A simple analytical model and numerical simulations demonstrate that pulses with intensities exceeding 10{sup 22} W/cm{sup 2} may penetrate deeply into the plasma as a result of efficient ponderomotive acceleration of ions in the forward direction. The penetration depth as big as hundreds of microns depends on the laser fluence, which has to exceed a few tens of GJ/cm{sup 2}. The fast ions, accelerated at the bottom of the channel with an efficiency of more than 20%, show a high directionality and may heat the precompressed target core to fusion conditions.

• OSTI ID: 21180118
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 102; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ACCELERATION
IONS
LASERS
PELLETS
PENETRATION DEPTH
PLASMA
PONDEROMOTIVE FORCE
PULSES
SIMULATION
THERMONUCLEAR IGNITION