Demonstration of thermonuclear conditions in magnetized liner inertial fusion experimentsa)

Le résumé fourni par la source

The magnetized liner inertial fusion concept [S. A. Slutz et al., Phys.Plasmas 17, 056303 (2010)] utilizes a magnetic field and laser heating to relax the pressure requirements of inertial confinement fusion.The first experiments to test the concept [M.R. Gomez et al., Phys.Rev. Lett.113, 155003 (2014)] were conducted utilizing the 19 MA, 100 ns Z machine, the 2.5 kJ, 1 TW Z Beamlet laser, and the 10 T Applied B-field on Z system.Despite an estimated implosion velocity of only 70 km/s in these experiments, electron and ion temperatures at stagnation were as high as 3 keV, and thermonuclear deuterium-deuterium neutron yields up to 2 Â 10 12 have been produced.X-ray emission from the fuel at stagnation had widths ranging from 50 to 110 lm over a roughly 80% of the axial extent of the target (6-8 mm) and lasted approximately 2 ns.X-ray yields from these experiments are consistent with a stagnation density of the hot fuel equal to 0.2-0.4g/cm 3 .In these experiments, up to 5 Â 10 10 secondary deuterium-tritium neutrons were produced.Given that the areal density of the plasma was approximately 1-2 mg/cm 2 , this indicates the stagnation plasma was significantly magnetized, which is consistent with the anisotropy observed in the deuterium-tritium neutron spectra.Control experiments where the laser and/or magnetic field were not utilized failed to produce stagnation temperatures greater than 1 keV and primary deuterium-deuterium yields greater than 10 10 .An additional control experiment where the fuel contained a sufficient dopant fraction to substantially increase radiative losses also failed to produce a relevant stagnation temperature.The results of these experiments are consistent with a thermonuclear neutron source.

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