Abstract
Fast isochoric heating of a pre-compressed plasma core with a high-intensity short-pulse laser is an attractive and alternative approach to create ultra-high-energy-density states like those found in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) ignition sparks. Laser-produced relativistic electron beam (REB) deposits a part of kinetic energy in the core, and then the heated region becomes the hot spark to trigger the ignition. However, due to the inherent large angular spread of the produced REB, only a small portion of the REB collides with the core. Here, we demonstrate a factor-of-two enhancement of laser-to-core energy coupling with the magnetized fast isochoric heating. The method employs a magnetic field of hundreds of Tesla that is applied to the transport region from the REB generation zone to the core which results in guiding the REB along the magnetic field lines to the core. This scheme may provide more efficient energy coupling compared to the conventional ICF scheme.
Highlights
Fast isochoric heating of a pre-compressed plasma core with a high-intensity short-pulse laser is an attractive and alternative approach to create ultra-high-energy-density states like those found in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) ignition sparks
Known as fast ignition[12], of a precompressed core, was proposed as an alternative approach to the ICF ignition that avoids the ignition quench caused by the mixing because the hot spark is generated not by the adiabatic compression but by the external energy injection whose timescale is shorter than the hydrodynamic timescale (
A part of the relativistic electron beam (REB) kinetic energy is deposited into the core, and the heated region becomes the hot spark to trigger the fusion ignition
Summary
Fast isochoric heating of a pre-compressed plasma core with a high-intensity short-pulse laser is an attractive and alternative approach to create ultra-high-energy-density states like those found in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) ignition sparks. Namely enhanced laser-tocore energy coupling with the magnetized fast isochoric heating enabled by an application of external kilo-Tesla-level magnetic field, is a milestone as a demonstration of the efficient energy coupling, as a means to reduce the large radial spread of the REB. This is considered essential to secure scalability of the fast heating to the ignition[19]
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