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Title: Observation of persistent species temperature separation in inertial confinement fusion mixtures

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
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  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Univ. of Rochester, NY (United States). Lab. for Laser Energetics

The injection and mixing of contaminant mass into the fuel in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions is a primary factor preventing ignition. ICF experiments have recently achieved an alpha-heating regime, in which fusion self-heating is the dominant source of yield, by reducing the susceptibility of implosions to instabilities that inject this mass. We report the results of unique separated reactants implosion experiments studying pre-mixed contaminant as well as detailed high-resolution three-dimensional simulations that are in good agreement with experiments. At conditions relevant to mixing regions in high-yield implosions, we observe persistent chunks of contaminant that do not achieve thermal equilibrium with the fuel throughout the burn phase. The assumption of thermal equilibrium is made in nearly all computational ICF modeling and methods used to infer levels of contaminant from experiments. We estimate that these methods may underestimate the amount of contaminant by a factor of two or more.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001
OSTI ID:
1604025
Report Number(s):
LA-UR--19-20184
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 11; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (6)

Mitigation of cross-beam energy transfer in ignition-scale polar-direct-drive target designs for the National Ignition Facility journal July 2018
Mitigating laser-imprint effects in direct-drive inertial confinement fusion implosions with an above-critical-density foam layer journal August 2018
Real and complex valued geometrical optics inverse ray-tracing for inline field calculations journal March 2019
Modeling of direct-drive cylindrical implosion experiments with an Eulerian radiation-hydrodynamics code journal April 2019
Using cylindrical implosions to investigate hydrodynamic instabilities in convergent geometry journal November 2019
Direct-drive double-shell implosion: A platform for burning-plasma physics studies journal December 2019