Related papers: Plasma Core Rocket Engines
Here we present results from an experiment performed at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research. A mono-energetic beam of chromium ions with initial energies of $\sim 450$ MeV was fired through a magnetized interaction region formed…
Producing a dense background plasma for neutralization purposes is experimentally difficult and requires a large amount of energy. We show that even an underdense background plasma with a small relative density can achieve high…
Atomic nuclei are quantum many-body systems of protons and neutrons held together by strong nuclear forces. Under the proper conditions, nuclei can break into two (sometimes three) fragments which will subsequently decay by emitting…
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…
Plasma wakefield acceleration revolutionized the field of particle accelerators by generating gigavolt-per-centimeter fields. To compete with conventional radio-frequency (RF) accelerators, plasma technology must demonstrate operation at…
Uranium is considered as a very important nuclear energy material because of the huge amount of energy released. As the main products of spontaneous decay of uranium, helium is difficult to react with uranium for its chemical inertness.…
As powerful gamma-ray engines, blazars -- relativistic plasma jets launched toward Earth from active galactic nuclei -- are manifestly high-energy particle accelerators. Yet, exactly how these jets accelerate particles as well as what they…
Tungsten peaking is predicted in the core of a WEST plasma with total-f gyrokinetic simulations, including both collisional and turbulent transport. This prediction is validated with a synthetic diagnostic of the bolometry. Although…
The ionization dynamics of a Xenon cluster with 40 atoms is analyzed under a pum p probe scenario of laser pulses where an infrared laser pulse of 50 fs length follows with a well defined time delay a VUV pulse of the same length and peak…
We derive stringent constraints on the persistent source associated with FRB 121102: Size $10^{17}$ cm $<R<10^{18}$ cm, age $<300$ yr, characteristic electron energy $\varepsilon_e\sim0.3$ GeV, total energy $\sim10^{49}$ erg. The hot…
We propose a laser-driven near-solid density nano-structured micro-reactor concept operating with mixed nuclear fusion fuels. The micro-reactor is capable of making use of a range of neutronic and aneutronic fuels. Its core parts consists…
The existing intense laser-based approaches for nuclear excitation offer ultrafast temporal resolution and high efficiency compared to traditional accelerator probes. However, controlling nuclear properties such as spin and magnetic moment…
We present results from experiments on the head-on merging of two supersonic plasma jets in an initially collisionless regime for the counter-streaming ions. The plasma jets are of either an argon/impurity or hydrogen/impurity mixture and…
A trapped Bose--Einstein-condensed mixture of two types of cold atoms with significantly different masses has been simulated numerically within the coupled Gross--Pitaevskii equations. A configuration consisting of a vortex-free core and a…
An experimental program is currently underway at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to compress deuterium and tritium (DT) fuel to densities and temperatures sufficient to achieve fusion and energy gain. The primary approach being…
We identify the desired characteristics and parameters of a beta>1 magnetized plasma, possibly with highly tangled, open field lines, that could be a suitable target to be compressed to fusion conditions by a spherically imploding plasma…
This study explores a simplified one-dimensional subchannel of a graphite-moderated nuclear reactor operating with a gaseous core in steady-state conditions, reproducing a neutronic-thermal-fluid-dynamics coupled problem with thermal…
We argue that the recently reported Kolmogorov-like magnetic turbulence spectrum in the cool core of the Hydra A galaxy cluster can be understood by kinetic energy injection by active galaxies that drives a turbulent non-helical magnetic…
The present work is devoted to the analysis of the internal structure of relativistic jets under the condition that the velocity of the plasma flow at the jet axis vanishes. It is shown that in spite of the seemingly fundamental difference…
Reduction of particle and heat fluxes to plasma facing components is critical to achieve stable conditions for both the plasma and the plasma material interface in magnetic confinement fusion experiments. A stable and reproducible plasma…