Ignition thresholds for deuterium-tritium mixtures contaminated by high-Z material

Abstract

In experiments for the so-called Cone Focused Fast Ignition the imploded material was found contaminated by the cone high-Z material. In this paper the thermonuclear ignition thresholds for a fuel contaminated at atomic level were evaluated as function of the contaminant fraction. A short pulse of protons was used to start the ignition of a cylindrical assembly of compressed fuel uniformly contaminated at atomic level by gold. As a reference, a study for the ignition of a clean target at different proton energies was first performed and, after this, the ignition conditions for contaminated targets were found for a selected proton energy. Protons with proper energy can be used to mock-up deposition by fast electrons so that part of the study can be considered useful to predict the performances also for this energy vector.