Oscillating Plasmas for Proton- Boron Fusion in Miniature Vacuum Discharge

Abstract

Earlier, the experiments on the aneutronic proton-boron (pB) fusion in a miniature nanosecond vacuum discharge (NVD) with oscillatory plasma confinement and correspondent α particles yield were presented. In this work, we consider some specific features of oscillatory confinement as a relatively new type of plasma confinement for fusion. Particle-in-cell (PiC) simulations of pB fusion processes have shown that the plasma in NVD, and especially on the discharge axis, is in a state close to a quasineutral one, which is rather different from the conditions in the well-known scheme of periodically oscillating plasma spheres (POPSs) suggested earlier for fusion. Apparently, small-scale oscillations in NVD are a mechanism of resonant ion heating, unlike coherent compressions in the original POPS scheme. Nevertheless, the favorable scaling of the fusion power in NVD turns out to be close to the POPS fusion but differs significantly both in the compression ratio and in the values of the parameter of quasineutrality. In addition, unlike the POPS scheme, PiC simulation reveals that the distribution functions of protons and boron ions in NVD are non-Maxwellian. Therefore, we have an aneutronic pB synthesis in a nonequilibrium plasma remaining “nonignited” on the discharge axis.