Neutron production from thermonuclear reactions in laser-generated plasmas
Abstract
The production of intense neutron beams via thermonuclear reactions in laser-generated plasmas is investigated theoretically. So far, state-of-the-art neutron beams are produced via laser-induced particle acceleration leading to high-energy particle beams that subsequently interact with a secondary target. Here we show that neutron beams of two orders of magnitude narrower bandwidth can be obtained from thermonuclear reactions in plasmas generated by Petawatt-class lasers. The intensity of such neutron beams is about one or two orders of magnitude lower than the one of the state-of-the-art laser-driven neutron beams. We study to this end the reaction H(, )He in plasmas generated by Petawatt-class lasers interacting with D gas jet targets and CD solid-state targets. The results also shows the possibility of direct measurements of reaction rates at low temperatures of astrophysical interests. In addition, the use of CD solid-state targets can also lead to great enhancements on the plasma screening compared to the case of D gas jet targets, opening new possibilities to study this so far unsolved issue in the field of astrophysics.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1901.08979,
title = {Neutron production from thermonuclear reactions in laser-generated plasmas},
author = {Yuanbin Wu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.08979},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
8 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in Physics of Plasmas