Studies on the Dynamics of D–T Fusion Reaction Based on the Relativistic Equilibrium Velocity Distribution

Abstract

The Coulomb barrier is in general much higher than thermal energy. Nuclear fusion reactions occur only among few protons and nuclei (i.e., deuterium and tritium) with higher relative energies than Coulomb barrier. It is the equilibrium velocity distribution of these high-energy protons and nuclei that participates in determining the rate of nuclear fusion reactions. In the circumstance it is inappropriate to use the Maxwellian velocity distribution for calculating the nuclear fusion reaction rate. We use the relativistic equilibrium has a reduction factor with respect to that based on the Maxwellian distribution, which factor depends on the temperature, reduced mass and atomic numbers of the studied nuclear fusion reactions. In this paper, we concluded at energy range 105 (keV) ≤ E ≤ 106 (keV), that is smaller than reduced mass energy of deuterium–tritium, m r c 2, the numerical values of R and R M are not different from each other very much, but by increasing energy near the region of m r c 2 the difference between them are visible, also by increasing energy for example 9 × 106 (keV) ≤ E ≤ 10 × 106 (keV) the difference is obviously more visible. Therefore, we have to use relativistic equilibrium velocity distribution instead of Maxwellian velocity distribution.