Nonlinear force driven plasma blocks igniting solid density hydrogen boron: Laser fusion energy without radioactivity

Abstract

Energy production by laser driven fusion energy is highly matured by spherical compression and ignition of deuterium-tritium (DT) fuel. An alternative scheme is the fast ignition where petawatt (PW)-picosecond (ps) laser pulses are used. A significant anomaly was measured and theoretically analyzed with very clean PW-ps laser pulses for avoiding relativistic self focusing. This permits a come-back of the side-on ignition scheme of uncompressed solid DT, which is in essential contrast to the spherical compression scheme. The conditions of side-on ignition thresholds needed exorbitantly high energy flux densities E*. These conditions are now in reach by using PW-ps laser pulses to verify side-on ignition for DT. Generalizing this to side-on igniting solid state density proton-Boron-11 (HB11) arrives at the surprising result that this is one order of magnitude more difficult than the DT fusion. This is in contrast to the well known impossibility of igniting HB11 by spherical laser compression and may offer fusion energy production with exclusion of neutron generation and nuclear radiation effects with a minimum of heat pollution in power stations and application for long mission space propulsion.

Low energy measurements of the B10(p,α)Be7 reaction

“…In particular, a consistent measurement of all 10 B+p induced reaction channels including radiative capture, expanding on the data of Wiescher et al [50], over a wide energy range and at several angles would lead to a significant improvement in the overall confidence of future R-matrix fits by establishing the relative normalizations of the different data sets. The current situation of several patchwork measurements, with sometimes vastly differing normalizations, precludes a confident R-matrix analysis.…”

“…The astrophysical S-factor for the 10 B+p system is defined as a function of the center-of mass energy in units (MeV) and the reaction cross section σ(E) in units (barn):…”

“…One such application uses the 11 B(p, 2α) 4 He reaction for laser driven hot pulsed * Michael.C. Wiescher.1@nd.edu plasma systems [10][11][12], and another proposes laser jet propulsion systems for long distant space travel [13]. The optimal energy range for a 11 B+p fusion system is between E c.m.…”

CR-39 track detector calibration for H, He, and C ions from 0.1-0.5 MeV up to 5 MeV for laser-induced nuclear fusion product identification

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] These new kinds of particle beams present a huge interest for many applications 9,10 and, particularly, ion beams can be used as a new means to produce nuclear reactions outside the thermal equilibrium. 11 We have designed a scheme to initiate aneutronic fusion reactions between protons and boron-11 nuclei [12][13][14][15] in a plasma state, producing three alpha particles and releasing 8.7 MeV: p + 11 5 B → 3α + 8.7 MeV. 16 This aneutronic fusion reaction is an alternative to produce energy without generating highenergy ionizing particles; but it would require a very high fuel temperature and therefore a high laser energy to reach ignition if used in the direct and indirect drive schemes that have been designed for deuterium-tritium fuel ignition.…”

Relativistic self-distortion of a laser pulse and ponderomotive acceleration of electrons in an axially inhomogeneous plasma

“…In these schemes, ponderomotive force plays the basic role, it can directly accelerate the electrons or excite a large amplitude plasma wave that can accelerate the electrons. The ponderomotive acceleration has been intensively investigated theoretically and experimentally, and compared with other acceleration methods (Nakamura, 2000;Nakamura et al, 2008;Lotov, 2001;Balakirev et al, 2001Balakirev et al, , 2004Geddes et al, 2004;Faure et al, 2004;Mangles et al, 2004;Reitsma et al, 2005;Li et al, 2004;Reitsma & Jaroszynski, 2004;Hoffmann et al, 2005;Mourou et al, 2006;Joshi, 2007;Hora, 2006Hora, , 2007Hora et al, 2009;Shi, 2007;Nickles et al, 2007;Chen et al, 2008;Kulagin et al, 2008;Limpouch et al, 2008). A fast moving electron at the front of the pulse can gain large energies when its velocity acquires a value greater than the group velocity of the laser before reaching the pulse peak.…”