Pellet ignition using ions shock accelerated in the corona

Cairns, RA and Boella, E and Vranic, M and Silva, LO and Trines, R and Norreys, P and Bingham, R (2015) Pellet ignition using ions shock accelerated in the corona. In: 42nd EPS Conference on Plasma Physics, 2015-06-22 - 2015-06-26, Centro Cultural de Belém.

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Abstract

Recently we have suggested that fast ignition with ions might be possible using a scheme in which, towards the end of the compression phase in inertial fusion, a sequence of intense short pulses is used, first to heat the corona to a high temperature then to launch a shock wave to accelerate ions into the compressed core. This is in contrast to other ion fast ignition schemes in which a separate target is envisaged for the generation of the ions. Initial estimates of the range of energetic ions moving into the core suggest that ions in the 1-10 Mev range will deposit their energy when the density reaches 1025 -1026 cm-3. We will report on detailed studies to identify the range of corona temperatures and shock Mach numbers needed to produce ions of the energy necessary to produce core heating. With the aid of computer simulations of the heating of the corona and production of shock waves in the resulting high electron temperature plasma we will study the requirements for laser systems to make this scheme viable.

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