Related papers: Enhancement to Fusion Reactivity in Sheared Flows
The reactivity of fusion plasma depends not only on its local density and temperature but also, through a recently identified kinetic effect, on the relative velocities of nearby fluid elements. Turbulence on fine spatial scales therefore…
We investigate the kinetic effects of upstream, magnetic field-aligned, flow shear on anti-parallel magnetic reconnection using 2.5D Particle-In-Cell simulations. Our results demonstrate that flow shear significantly alters the reconnection…
Two basic approaches to producing thermonuclear fusion with a sheared flow stabilized z-pinch are considered. One consists of heating the entire length of the z-pinch column to the required temperatures. The other basic approach considered…
The fast ignition paradigm for inertial fusion offers increased gain and tolerance of asymmetry by compressing fuel at low entropy and then quickly igniting a small region. Because this hotspot rapidly disassembles, the ions must be heated…
Magnetized inertial fusion experiments are approaching regimes where the radial transport is dominated by collisions between magnetized ions, providing an opportunity to exploit effects usually associated with steady-state magnetic fusion.…
Turbulence enhances fusion reactivity, enabling ignition at lower temperature. A modified Lawson-like ignition criterion is derived for inertially confined plasmas harboring turbulent kinetic energy. Remarkably, if small-scale turbulence is…
It is found that in magnetized electrostatic plasma flows the velocity shear couples ion-acoustic waves with ion-cyclotron waves and leads, under favorable conditions, to their efficient reciprocal transformations. It is shown that in a…
Starting from the assumption that saturation of plasma turbulence driven by temperature-gradient instabilities in fusion plasmas is achieved by a local energy cascade between a long-wavelength outer scale, where energy is injected into the…
Fast rotation can improve the stability and confinement of fusion plasmas. However, to maintain a rapidly rotating fusion plasma in steady state, significant energy must be invested in spinning up each incoming fuel ion. We show here that,…
Inertial confinement fusion hotspots and cluster Coulomb explosion plasmas may develop a positive net electric charge. The Coulomb barrier penetrability and the rate of nuclear fusion reactions at ultra-low energies ($\lesssim 10$ keV) are…
The competition between the drive and stabilization of plasma microinstabilities by sheared flow is investigated, focusing on the ion temperature gradient mode. Using a twisting mode representation in sheared slab geometry, the…
Shear flows are ubiquitously present in space and astrophysical plasmas. This paper highlights the central idea of the non-thermal acceleration of charged particles in shearing flows and reviews some of the recent developments. Topics…
Aneutronic and nonradioactive properties make the proton-boron fusion a prospective candidate for fusion energy production through reactions following p+$^{11}$B$\rightarrow$3${\alpha}$ (p-$^{11}$B). However, it is difficult to achieve a…
We theoretically investigate the interplay between magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves and shear flows in a partially ionized solar plasma, focusing on the energy exchange mediated by the flow and the transformation between wave modes. We…
Spin-polarized fuel (SPF) is recognized for enhancing fusion reactivity, but it could provide other advantages particularly relevant to advanced fusion fuels. In this work, we calculate how SPF in D-${}^3$He plasmas affects not only…
The analytical treatment of nonlinear evolution of the shear-flow-modified current driven ion cyclotron instability and shear-flow-driven ion cyclotron kinetic instabilities of magnetic field--aligned plasma shear flow is presented.…
We investigated a nonlinear advection-diffusion-reaction equation for a passive scalar field. The purpose is to understand how the compressibility can affect the front dynamics and the bulk burning rate. We study two classes of flows:…
In this Article, we study the hydrodynamics and burn of the thermonuclear fuel in inertial confinement fusion pellets at the ion kinetic level. The analysis is based on a two-velocity-scale Vlasov-Fokker-Planck kinetic model that is…
We have extended our study of the competition between the drive and stabilization of plasma microinstabilities by sheared flow to include electromagnetic effects at low plasma $\beta$ (the ratio of plasma to magnetic pressure). The extended…
Shear flows are naturally expected to occur in astrophysical environments and potential sites of continuous non-thermal Fermi-type particle acceleration. Here we investigate the efficiency of expanding relativistic outflows to facilitate…