Alpha Particle Diagnostic
The study of burning plasmas is the next frontier in fusion energy research, and will be a major objective of the U.S. fusion program through U.S. collaboration with our international partners on the ITER Project. For DT magnetic fusion to be useful for energy production, it is essential that the energetic alpha particles produced by the fusion reactions be confined long enough to deposit a significant fraction of their initial ~3.5 MeV energy in the plasma before they are lost. Development of diagnostics to study the behavior of energetic confined alpha particles is a very important if not essential part of burning plasma research. Despite the clear need for these measurements, development of diagnostics to study confined the fast confined alphas to date has proven extremely difficult, and the available techniques remain for the most part unproven and with significant uncertainties. Research under this grant had the goal of developing diagnostics of fast confined alphas, primarily based on measurements of the neutron and ion tails resulting from alpha particle knock-on collisions with the plasma deuterium and tritium fuel ions. One of the strengths of this approach is the ability to measure the alphas in the hot plasma core where the interesting ignition physics will occur.
- Research Organization:
- General Atomics, San Diego, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-92ER54150
- OSTI ID:
- 969021
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/FG/54150-Final Report
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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