Influence of atomic processes on the implosion of plasma liners

Abstract

The influence of atomic physics processes on the implosion of plasma liners for magneto-inertial nuclear fusion has been investigated numerically by using the method of front tracking in spherically symmetric geometry and equation of state models accounting for dissociation and ionization. Simulation studies of the self-collapse of argon liners to be used in the Los Alamos Plasma Liner Experiment (PLX) program have been performed as well as studies of implosion of deuterium and argon liners on plasma targets. Results show that atomic processes in converging liners reduce the temperature of liners and increase the Mach number that results in the increase of the stagnation pressure and the fusion energy gain. For deuterium and argon liners imploding on plasma targets, dissociation and ionization increased the stagnation pressure and the fusion energy gain by the factor of 1.5 (deuterium) and 2 (argon) correspondingly. Similarly, ionization during the self-collapse of argon liners leads to approximately doubling of the Mach number and the stagnation pressure. The influence of the longitudinal density spread of the liner has also been investigated. The self-collapse stagnation pressure decreased by the factor of 8.7 when the initial position of the liner was shifted from the merging radius (33 cm) to the PLX chamber edge (137.2 cm). Simulations with and without the heat conduction demonstrated that the heat conduction has negligible effect on the self-collapse pressure of argon liners.