{"title":"Photon and Neutron Production as In Situ Diagnostics of Proton-Boron Fusion","authors":"B. Hegelich, L. Labun, O. Z. Labun, T. Mehlhorn","doi":"10.1155/2023/6924841","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Short-pulse, ultrahigh-intensity lasers have opened new regimes for studying fusion plasmas and creating novel ultrashort ion beams and neutron sources. Diagnosing the plasma in these experiments is important for optimizing the fusion yield but difficult due to the picosecond time scales, 10 s of micron-cubed volumes, and high densities. We propose to use the yields of photons and neutrons produced by parallel reactions involving the same reactants to diagnose the plasma conditions and predict the yields of specific reactions of interest. In this work, we focus on verifying the yield of the high-interest aneutronic proton-boron fusion reaction \n \n \n \n \n 11\n \n \n B\n \n \n \n \n p\n ,\n 2\n α\n \n \n \n \n 4\n \n \n H\n e\n \n , which is difficult to measure directly due to the short stopping range of the produced \n \n α\n s\n \n in most materials. We identify promising photon-producing reactions for this purpose and compute the ratios of the photon yield to the \n \n α\n \n yield as a function of plasma parameters. In beam-fusion experiments, the \n \n \n \n \n 11\n \n \n C\n \n yield is an easily-measurable observable to verify the \n \n α\n \n yield. In light of our results, improving and extending measurements of the cross-sections for these parallel reactions are important steps to gain greater control over these laser-driven fusion plasmas.","PeriodicalId":49925,"journal":{"name":"Laser and Particle Beams","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Laser and Particle Beams","FirstCategoryId":"101","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1155/2023/6924841","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"PHYSICS, APPLIED","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Short-pulse, ultrahigh-intensity lasers have opened new regimes for studying fusion plasmas and creating novel ultrashort ion beams and neutron sources. Diagnosing the plasma in these experiments is important for optimizing the fusion yield but difficult due to the picosecond time scales, 10 s of micron-cubed volumes, and high densities. We propose to use the yields of photons and neutrons produced by parallel reactions involving the same reactants to diagnose the plasma conditions and predict the yields of specific reactions of interest. In this work, we focus on verifying the yield of the high-interest aneutronic proton-boron fusion reaction
11
B
p
,
2
α
4
H
e
, which is difficult to measure directly due to the short stopping range of the produced
α
s
in most materials. We identify promising photon-producing reactions for this purpose and compute the ratios of the photon yield to the
α
yield as a function of plasma parameters. In beam-fusion experiments, the
11
C
yield is an easily-measurable observable to verify the
α
yield. In light of our results, improving and extending measurements of the cross-sections for these parallel reactions are important steps to gain greater control over these laser-driven fusion plasmas.
短脉冲、超高强度激光为研究聚变等离子体和创造新型超短离子束和中子源开辟了新的途径。在这些实验中诊断等离子体对于优化聚变产量很重要,但由于皮秒时间尺度、10秒微米立方体积和高密度,诊断等离子体很困难。我们建议使用涉及相同反应物的平行反应产生的光子和中子的产率来诊断等离子体条件和预测特定反应的产率。在这项工作中,我们的重点是验证高兴趣的中子质子-硼聚变反应11 B p, 2 α 4 H e的产率,由于在大多数材料中产生的α s停止范围短,难以直接测量。我们为此目的确定了有前途的光子产生反应,并计算了光子产率与α产率的比值作为等离子体参数的函数。在束流聚变实验中,11c产率是验证α产率的一个容易测量的观测值。根据我们的结果,改进和扩展这些平行反应的横截面测量是更好地控制这些激光驱动的聚变等离子体的重要步骤。
期刊介绍:
Laser and Particle Beams is an international journal which deals with basic physics issues of intense laser and particle beams, and the interaction of these beams with matter. Research on pulse power technology associated with beam generation is also of strong interest. Subjects covered include the physics of high energy densities; non-LTE phenomena; hot dense matter and related atomic, plasma and hydrodynamic physics and astrophysics; intense sources of coherent radiation; high current particle accelerators; beam-wave interaction; and pulsed power technology.