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Title: Impact of first-principles properties of deuterium–tritium on inertial confinement fusion target designs

Journal Article · · Physics of Plasmas
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4917477· OSTI ID:22410400
; ; ;  [1]; ;  [2];  [3]
  1. Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, 250 East River Road, Rochester, New York 14623-1299 (United States)
  2. Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)
  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Science and Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 (United States)

A comprehensive knowledge of the properties of high-energy-density plasmas is crucial to understanding and designing low-adiabat, inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions through hydrodynamic simulations. Warm-dense-matter (WDM) conditions are routinely accessed by low-adiabat ICF implosions, in which strong coupling and electron degeneracy often play an important role in determining the properties of warm dense plasmas. The WDM properties of deuterium–tritium (DT) mixtures and ablator materials, such as the equation of state, thermal conductivity, opacity, and stopping power, were usually estimated by models in hydro-codes used for ICF simulations. In these models, many-body and quantum effects were only approximately taken into account in the WMD regime. Moreover, the self-consistency among these models was often missing. To examine the accuracy of these models, we have systematically calculated the static, transport, and optical properties of warm dense DT plasmas, using first-principles (FP) methods over a wide range of densities and temperatures that cover the ICF “path” to ignition. These FP methods include the path-integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) and quantum-molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations, which treat electrons with many-body quantum theory. The first-principles equation-of-state table, thermal conductivities (κ{sub QMD}), and first principles opacity table of DT have been self-consistently derived from the combined PIMC and QMD calculations. They have been compared with the typical models, and their effects to ICF simulations have been separately examined in previous publications. In this paper, we focus on their combined effects to ICF implosions through hydro-simulations using these FP-based properties of DT in comparison with the usual model simulations. We found that the predictions of ICF neutron yield could change by up to a factor of ∼2.5; the lower the adiabat of DT capsules, the more variations in hydro-simulations. The FP-based properties of DT are essential for designing ICF ignition targets. Future work on first-principles studies of ICF ablator materials is also discussed.

OSTI ID:
22410400
Journal Information:
Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 5; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Calculation of Particle Emissions and Fusion Cross Sections After 8 B( t ,*), 9 B( t ,*), and 10 B( t ,*) Reactions by Monte Carlo Simulations journal February 2020
Kinetic physics in ICF: present understanding and future directions journal April 2018
Exchange-correlation thermal effects in shocked deuterium: Softening the principal Hugoniot and thermophysical properties journal June 2019
Quantum molecular dynamics study on the proton exchange, ionic structures, and transport properties of warm dense hydrogen-deuterium mixtures journal June 2018
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