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Achieving A Hydrodynamically Equivalent Burning Plasma in Direct-Drive Laser Fusion

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Achieving A Hydrodynamically Equivalent Burning Plasma in Direct-Drive Laser Fusion
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/APCCNI
 
Creator V. Gopalaswamy , C. A. Williams , R. Betti, D. Patel, J. P. Knauer, A. Lees, D. Cao, E. M. Campbell, P. Farmakis, R. Ejaz, K. S. Anderson, R. Epstein, J. Carroll-Nellenbeck , I. V. Igumenshchev, J. A. Marozas , P. B. Radha, A. A. Solodov , C. A. Thomas, K. M. Woo, T. J. B. Collins, S. X. Hu , W. Scullin, D. Turnbull, V. N. Goncharov, K. Churnetski, C. J. Forrest, V. Yu. Glebov, P. V. Heuer, H. McClow, R. C. Shah, C. Stoeckl, W. Theobald, D. H. Edgell, S. Ivancic , M. J. Rosenberg, S. P. Regan, D. Bredesen, C. Fella, M. Koch, R. T. Janezic, M. J. Bonino, D. R. Harding, K. A. Bauer , S. Sampat, L. J. Waxer, M. Labuzeta , S. F. B. Morse , M. Gatu-Johnson , R. D. Petrasso, J. A. Frenje, J. Murray , B. Serrato, D. Guzman, C. Shuldberg , M. Farrell, C. Deeney
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description Focussing laser light onto the surface of a small target filled with deuterium and tritium implodes it and leads to the creation of a hot and dense plasma, in which thermonuclear fusion reactions occur. In order for the plasma to become self-sustaining, the heating of the plasma must be dominated by the energy provided by the fusion reactions—a condition known as a burning plasma. A metric for this is the generalized Lawson parameter, where values above around 0.8 imply a burning plasma. Here, we report on hydro-equivalent scaling of experimental results on the OMEGA laser system and show that these have achieved core conditions that reach a burning plasma when the central part of the plasma, the hotspot, is scaled in size by at least a factor of 3.9 ± 0.10, which would require a driver laser energy of at least 1.7 ± 0.13 MJ. In addition, we hydro-equivalently scale the results to the 2.15 MJ of laser energy available at the National Ignition Facility and find that these implosions reach 86% of the Lawson parameter required for ignition. Our results support direct-drive inertial confinement fusion as a credible approach for achieving thermonuclear ignition and net energy in laser fusion.
 
Subject Physics
burning plasma
direct drive
hydrodynamic scaling
inertial confinement fusion
OMEGA Laser Facility
 
Date 2024-02-15