Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2017) 132: 270
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2017-11525-6

Regular Article

Investigating the foil-generated deuteron beam interaction with a DT target in degenerate and classical plasma

Department of Physics, University of Guilan, 41335-1914, Rasht, Iran

^* e-mail: m.mehrangiz30@gmail.com

Received: 2 June 2016
Accepted: 1 May 2017
Published online: 22 June 2017

Abstract

Deuteron fast ignition of a conically guided pre-compressed DT fuel is investigated. For this purpose, the acceleration of the deuterated thin foil by the intense laser beam is evaluated. The acceleration values and the number of foil-generated deuterons are calculated in terms of the laser pulse duration. Using the created deuterons as the fast ignitors, we investigate the fast ignition scheme by comparing fully degenerate, partial degenerate and classical types of DT plasma. The total energy gain of deuterons “beam fusion” is calculated to show the efficiency of beam reactions in increasing fusion rate. Besides, the stopping time and stopping range of incident deuterons are evaluated. Our numerical results indicate that degeneracy increases the beam-target collisions. Thus, it prepares the ignition situation sooner than the classical plasma. Moreover, the number of generated deuterons and their acceleration depend on the foil thickness and laser parameters. We show that when a 4ps laser with intensity of W/cm^2 focused onto a 20μm foil, deuterons are generated. Moreover, under our analysis, in order to have a practicable fast ignition, 18% of the laser energy is necessary to convert into a deuteron driver.