Accelerators for heavy ion fusion

Large fusion devices will almost certainly produce net energy. However, a successful commercial fusion energy system must also satisfy important engineering and economic constraints. Inertial confinement fusion power plants driven by multi-stage, heavy-ion accelerators appear capable of meeting these constraints. The reasons behind this promising outlook for heavy-ion fusion are given in this report. This report is based on the transcript of a talk presented at the Symposium on Lasers and Particle Beams for Fusion and Strategic Defense at the University of Rochester on April 17-19, 1985

Beam-target interaction in heavy ion fusion

The beam-target interaction in heavy ion fusion is theoretically understood, but experimental verification at appropriate beam intensities is not possible using existing accelerators. If fusion-intensity ion beams were to lose significantly less energy in passing through matter than calculated it would increase the cost of heavy ion fusion. In the worst case the cost scaling is such that a 25% decrease in energy loss would increase the cost of the accelerator by roughly 10%. In this paper we show that fundamental considerations place a lower bound on ion energy loss. The lower bound is not significantly less than the expected energy loss obtained from detailed calculations

Heavy-ion inertial fusion: initial survey of target gain versus ion-beam parameters

Inertial-fusion targets have been designed for use with heavy-ion accelerators as drivers in fusion energy power plants. We have made an initial survey of target gain versus beam energy, power, focal radius, and ion range. This provides input for understanding the trade-offs among accelerator designs

Fusion target designed to match present relativistic electron beam machine parameters

The range of parameters considered for this design were restricted to beam voltages of 1 MeV and pulse widths of 50 ns, with zero rise and fall time. Total beam energy was varied from 10 kJ to 100 kJ. Descriptions are given of the target and electron deposition. Computer calculations are given of electron beam heating of the fuel

An integrated systems model for heavy ion drivers

A source-to-target computer model for an induction linac driver for heavy ion fusion has been developed and used to define a reference case driver that meets the requirements of one current target design. Key features of the model are discussed, and the design parameters of the reference case design are described. Examples of the systems analyses leading to the point design are given, and directions for future work are noted

Stability and symmetry requirements of electron and ion beam fusion targets

Considerations of hydrodynamic stability impose severe restrictions on the design of electron and ion beam imploded fusion targets. Furthermore, in order to obtain a sufficiently spherical implosion, many target designs require electron or ion beams having a high degree of spherical symmetry. The stability and symmetry requirements of several recently proposed target designs were studied by numerical simulation using the computer program LASNEX. The ion beam targets studied are more vulnerable to instability than the electron beam targets. (auth

An Induction Linac Driver For A 0.44 MJ Heavy-Ion Direct Drive Target

The conceptual design of a heavy ion fusion driver system is described, including all major components. Particular issues emerging from this exercise are identified and discussed. The most important conclusion of our study is that due to stringent requirements on ion pulse phase space, we are unable to find a credible accelerator design that meets the requirements of the example target. Either the target design must be modified to accept larger ion ranges and larger focal spot sizes, or we must consider other target options

Flavor SU(3) breaking effects in the chiral unitary model for meson-baryon scatterings

We examine flavor SU(3) breaking effects on meson-baryon scattering amplitudes in the chiral unitary model. It turns out that the SU(3) breaking, which appears in the leading quark mass term in the chiral expansion, can not explain the channel dependence of the subtraction parameters of the model, which are crucial to reproduce the observed scattering amplitudes and resonance properties.Comment: RevTeX4, 4 pages, 3 figures, 2 table

Chiral dynamics of p-wave in K^- p and coupled states

We perform an evaluation of the p-wave amplitudes of meson-baryon scattering in the strangeness S=-1 sector starting from the lowest order chiral Lagrangians and introducing explicitly the Sigma^* field with couplings to the meson-baryon states obtained using SU(6) symmetry. The N/D method of unitarization is used, equivalent, in practice, to the use of the Bethe-Salpeter equation with a cut-off. The procedure leaves no freedom for the p-waves once the s-waves are fixed and thus one obtains genuine predictions for the p-wave scattering amplitudes, which are in good agreement with experimental results for differential cross sections, as well as for the width and partial decay widths of the Sigma^*(1385).Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, 6 figure