Simulation and assessment of ion kinetic effects in a direct-drive capsule implosion experiment
Plasma Physics
2016-11-23 v1
Abstract
The first simulations employing a kinetic treatment of both fuel and shell ions to model inertial confinement fusion experiments are presented, including results showing the importance of kinetic physics processes in altering fusion burn. A pair of direct drive capsule implosions performed at the OMEGA facility with two different gas fills of deuterium, tritium, and helium-3 are analyzed. During implosion shock convergence, highly non-Maxwellian ion velocity distributions and separations in the density and temperature amongst the ion species are observed. Diffusion of fuel into the capsule shell is identified as a principal process that degrades fusion burn performance.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1610.03728,
title = {Simulation and assessment of ion kinetic effects in a direct-drive capsule implosion experiment},
author = {Ari Le and T. J. T. Kwan and M. J. Schmitt and H. W. Herrmann and S. H. Batha},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1610.03728},
year = {2016}
}