2014/09/08 by Benjamin-Édouard Peigney, Peigney, Benjamin-Edouard, Larroche, O. +2
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Fusion and Nuclear Reactions #FOS: Physical sciences #Laser-Plasma Interactions and Diagnostics #Magnetic confinement fusion research #Plasma Physics (physics.plasm-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1409.2851
openalex publication_date 2014/09/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In this Article, we study the hydrodynamics and burn of the thermonuclear fuel in inertial confinement fusion pellets at the ion kinetic level. The analysis is based on a two-velocity-scale Vlasov-Fokker-Planck kinetic model that is specially tailored to treat fusion products (suprathermal α-particles) in a self-consistent manner with the thermal bulk. The model assumes spherical symmetry in configuration space and axial symmetry in velocity space around the mean flow velocity. Compared to fluid simulations where a multi-group diffusion scheme is applied to model α transport, the full ion-kinetic approach reveals significant non-local effects on the transport of energetic α-particles. This has a direct impact on hydrodynamic spatial profiles during combustion: the hot spot reactivity is reduced, while the inner dense fuel layers are preheated by the escaping α-suprathermal particles, which are transported farther out of the hot spot. We show how the kinetic transport enhancement of fusion products leads to a significant reduction of the fusion yield.