Mutual colliding impact fast ignition

Abstract

It is proposed to apply the well established colliding beam technology of high energy physics to the fast hot spot ignition of a highly compressed DT (deuterium-tritium) target igniting a larger D (deuterium) burn, by accelerating a small amount of solid deuterium, and likewise a small amount of tritium, making a head-on collision in the center of the target, projecting them through conical ducts situated at the opposite side of the target and converging in its center. In their head-on collision, the relative collision velocity is 5/3 times larger compared to the collision velocity of a stationary target. The two pieces have for this reason to be accelerated to a smaller velocity than would otherwise be needed to reach upon impact the same temperature. Since the velocity distribution of the two head-on colliding projectiles is with its two velocity peaks non-Maxwellian, the maximum cross section velocity product turns out to be substantially larger than the maximum if averaged over a Maxwellian. The D and T projectiles would have to be accelerated with two sabots driven by powerful particle or laser beams, permitting a rather large acceleration length. With the substantially larger cross section-velocity product by virtue of the non-Maxwellian velocity distribution, a further advantage is that the head-on collision produces a large magnetic field by the thermomagnetic Nernst effect, enhancing propagating burn. With this concept, the ignition of the neutron-less hydrogen-boron (HB11) reaction might even be possible in a heterogeneous assembly of the hydrogen and the boron to reduce the bremsstrahlung-losses, resembling the heterogeneous assembly in a graphite-natural uranium reactor, there to reduce the neutron losses.