Related papers: Nuclear Fusion: Bringing a star down to Earth
At nuclear matter density, electrically neutral strongly interacting matter in weak equilibrium is made of neutrons, protons and electrons. At sufficiently high density, such matter is made of up, down and strange quarks in the color-flavor…
Neutrinos produced during the collapse of a massive star are trapped in a nuclear medium (the proto-neutron star). Typically, neutrino energies (10-100 MeV) are of the order of nuclear giant resonances energies. Hence, neutrino propagation…
Three-dimensional hydrodynamical, Newtonian calculations of the coalescence of equal-mass binary neutron stars are performed, including a physical high-density equation of state and a treatment of the neutrino emission of the heated matter.…
Magnetic Reconnection is an efficient and fast acceleration mechanism by means of direct electric field acceleration parallel to the magnetic field. Thus, acceleration of particles in reconnection regions is a very important topic in plasma…
The ultra-high energy cosmic rays observed at the Earth are most likely accelerated in extra-galactic sources. For the typical luminosities invoked for such sources, the electric current associated to the flux of cosmic rays that leave them…
We consider the generation and evolution of magnetic field in a primordial plasma at temperature T < 1 MeV in presence of asymmetric neutrino background i.e. the number densities of right- handed and left-handed neutrinos are not same.…
The possibility of fusion ignition in proton-Boron$^{11}$ plasma is strongly enhanced if the energy from the fusion-produced $\alpha$ particles is channeled to fast protons, but in an environment in which most of the protons are thermally…
Conditions similar to those at the end of the divertor leg in a tokamak were replicated in the linear plasma machine Magnum-PSI. The neutral pressure in the target chamber is then increased to cause the target to transition from an attached…
The possibility of studying non-thermal electron energization in laser-driven plasma experiments of magnetic reconnection is studied using two- and three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. It is demonstrated that non-thermal…
The spatio-temporal evolution of the energetic particles in the transport time scale in tokamak plasmas is a key issue of the plasmas confinement, especially in burning plasmas. In order to include sources and sinks and collisional slowing…
The fuelling of plasmas by shallow frozen pellets with simultaneous mitigation of edge localised modes (ELM) by external magnetic perturbation is demonstrated on the MAST tokamak. Post-pellet particle loss is dominated by ELMs and inter-ELM…
Magnetic reconnection is thought to be the driver for many explosive phenomena in the universe. The energy release and particle acceleration during reconnection have been proposed as a mechanism for producing high-energy emissions and…
The mechanism of stabilization of neutron-excess nuclei in stars is considered. This mechanism must produce the neutronisation process in hot stars in the same way as it occurs in the dwarfs.
We present a first exploration of the results of neutron star-black hole mergers using black hole masses in the most likely range of $7M_\odot-10M_\odot$, a neutrino leakage scheme, and a modeling of the neutron star material through a…
We seek to understand the effect of high electron density in the proximity of a heavy nucleus on the fusion reaction rates in a hot plasma phase. We investigate quantitatively the catalytic effect of gold ($Z=79$) ions embedded in an…
In this paper we analyze the nuclear fusion rate between equal nuclei for all five different nuclear burning regimes in dense matter (two thermonuclear regimes, two pycnonuclear ones, and the intermediate regime). The rate is determined by…
In an inhomogeneous magnetised plasma the transport of energy and particles perpendicular to the magnetic field is in general mainly caused by quasi two-dimensional turbulent fluid mixing. The physics of turbulence and structure formation…
The generic question is considered: How can we determine the probability of an otherwise quasirandom event, having been triggered by an external influence? A specific problem is the quantification of the success of techniques to trigger,…
The conventional approach for thermal quench mitigation in a tokamak disruption is through a high-Z impurity injection that radiates away the plasma's thermal energy before it reaches the wall. The downside is a robust Ohmic-to-runaway…
Neutron stars in mass-transferring binaries are accreting the hydrogen and helium rich matter from the surfaces of their companions. This article simply explains the physics associated with how that material eventually fuses to form heavier…