A TUTORIAL ON IGNITION AND GAIN FOR SMALL FUSION TARGETS
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 087545 (United States)
Nuclear fusion was discovered experimentally in 1933-34 and other charged particle nuclear reactions were documented shortly thereafter. Work in earnest on the fusion ignition problem began with Edward Teller's group at Los Alamos during the war years. His group quantified all the important basic atomic and nuclear processes and summarized their interactions. A few years later, the success of the early theory developed at Los Alamos led to very successful thermonuclear weapons, but also to decades of unsuccessful attempts to harness fusion as an energy source of the future. The reasons for this history are many, but it seems appropriate to review some of the basics with the objective of identifying what is essential for success and what is not. This tutorial discusses only the conditions required for ignition in small fusion targets and how the target design impacts driver requirements. Generally speaking, the driver must meet the energy, power and power density requirements needed by the fusion target. The most relevant parameters for ignition of the fusion fuel are the minimum temperature and areal density (rhoR), but these parameters set secondary conditions that must be achieved, namely an implosion velocity, target size and pressure, which are interrelated. Despite the apparent simplicity of inertial fusion targets, there is not a single mode of fusion ignition, and the necessary combination of minimum temperature and areal density depends on the mode of ignition. However, by providing a magnetic field of sufficient strength, the conditions needed for fusion ignition can be drastically altered. Magnetized target fusion potentially opens up a vast parameter space between the extremes of magnetic and inertial fusion.
- OSTI ID:
- 21344396
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1154, Issue 1; Conference: 7. symposium on current trends in international fusion research, Washington, DC (United States), 5-9 Mar 2007; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3204614; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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ELECTRON TEMPERATURE
ICF DEVICES
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
INERTIAL FUSION DRIVERS
ION TEMPERATURE
LASER IMPLOSIONS
LASER TARGETS
LOS ALAMOS
MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
PLASMA
PLASMA DENSITY
THERMONUCLEAR FUELS
THERMONUCLEAR IGNITION
THERMONUCLEAR REACTIONS
CONFINEMENT
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FLUID MECHANICS
FUELS
HYDRODYNAMICS
IMPLOSIONS
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NEW MEXICO
NORTH AMERICA
NUCLEAR REACTIONS
NUCLEOSYNTHESIS
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
SYNTHESIS
TARGETS
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
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USA