Abstract
The injection and mixing of contaminant mass into the fuel in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions is a primary factor preventing ignition. ICF experiments have recently achieved an alpha-heating regime, in which fusion self-heating is the dominant source of yield, by reducing the susceptibility of implosions to instabilities that inject this mass. We report the results of unique separated reactants implosion experiments studying pre-mixed contaminant as well as detailed high-resolution three-dimensional simulations that are in good agreement with experiments. At conditions relevant to mixing regions in high-yield implosions, we observe persistent chunks of contaminant that do not achieve thermal equilibrium with the fuel throughout the burn phase. The assumption of thermal equilibrium is made in nearly all computational ICF modeling and methods used to infer levels of contaminant from experiments. We estimate that these methods may underestimate the amount of contaminant by a factor of two or more.
Highlights
The injection and mixing of contaminant mass into the fuel in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions is a primary factor preventing ignition
We report the results of experiments and highly detailed and resolved 3D simulations that provide evidence that for a wide range of initial conditions, mixing regions in inertially confined plasmas—i.e., regions where contaminants have mixed with hydrogenic fuel—maintain chunks of contaminants that do not achieve thermal equilibrium with the fuel during ICF implosions
We report the results of novel separated reactant ICF experiments designed to help to understand the behavior of contaminant mass during ICF implosions, along with detailed and highly-resolved threedimensional (3D) simulations that are in good agreement with the experimental data
Summary
The injection and mixing of contaminant mass into the fuel in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions is a primary factor preventing ignition. ICF experiments have recently achieved an alpha-heating regime, in which fusion self-heating is the dominant source of yield, by reducing the susceptibility of implosions to instabilities that inject this mass. ICF experiments have recently achieved an alpha-heating regime[10,11], in which fusion self-heating is the dominant source of yield, by reducing the susceptibility of implosions to the instabilities that inject contaminant mass. It has been argued[5,6] that material mixed into hot, compressed fuel equilibrates rapidly with the hot spot due to rapid inter-particle collisions, so that the equilibration time can be neglected. Since many instabilities arise late in the implosion, chunks of contaminant have the potential to remain unmixed and unequilibrated with the fuel during the burn phase
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