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Improving cryogenic deuterium-tritium implosion performance on OMEGA.
- Source :
-
Physics of Plasmas . May2013, Vol. 20 Issue 5, p056317. 9p. 1 Chart, 11 Graphs. - Publication Year :
- 2013
-
Abstract
- A flexible direct-drive target platform is used to implode cryogenic deuterium-tritium (DT) capsules on the OMEGA laser [Boehly et al., Opt. Commun. 133, 495 (1997)]. The goal of these experiments is to demonstrate ignition hydrodynamically equivalent performance where the laser drive intensity, the implosion velocity, the fuel adiabat, and the in-flight aspect ratio (IFAR) are the same as those for a 1.5-MJ target [Goncharov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 165001 (2010)] designed to ignite on the National Ignition Facility [Hogan et al., Nucl. Fusion 41, 567 (2001)]. The results from a series of 29 cryogenic DT implosions are presented. The implosions were designed to span a broad region of design space to study target performance as a function of shell stability (adiabat) and implosion velocity. Ablation-front perturbation growth appears to limit target performance at high implosion velocities. Target outer-surface defects associated with contaminant gases in the DT fuel are identified as the dominant perturbation source at the ablation surface; performance degradation is confirmed by 2D hydrodynamic simulations that include these defects. A trend in the value of the Lawson criterion [Betti et al., Phys. Plasmas 17, 058102 (2010)] for each of the implosions in adiabat-IFAR space suggests the existence of a stability boundary that leads to ablator mixing into the hot spot for the most ignition-equivalent designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *CRYOGENICS
*DEUTERIUM
*TRITIUM
*HYDRODYNAMICS
*ADIABATIC processes
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1070664X
- Volume :
- 20
- Issue :
- 5
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Physics of Plasmas
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 87925346
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4805088