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Thermonuclear Microexplosion Ignition by Imploding A Disk of Relativistic Electrons
Thermonuclear Microexplosion Ignition by Imploding A Disk of Relativistic Electrons
F. Winterberg
Development of the indirect-drive approach to inertial confinement fusion and the target
physics basis for ignition and gain
Physics of Plasmas 2, 3933 (1995); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.871025
I. INTRODUCTION least be easily projected and focused onto a target. The best
prospect seem to have projectile accelerators for impact fu-
Concepts proposed for the controlled release of nuclear
sion, but there the traveling magnetic wave accelerator be-
fusion energy by thermonuclear bum, either by magnetic or
comes very large.
inertial confinement, have in common that they all lead to
Here we propose a concept that employs intense pulses
very large devices. Magnetic confinement fusion has the ad-
of relativistic electrons, but unlike the intense relativistic
ditional disadvantage that it depends on a deuterium-tritium
electron beam pulses previously proposed, these pulses are
mixture, whereas inertial fusion could, in principle, also
neither electrically nor magnetically neutralized. Unlike the
work with deuterium alone. The different inertial confine-
space charge and electric current, neutralized intense relativ-
ment fusion concept here proposed instead, promises to be
istic electron beams that propagate through a thin gas or
rather compact.
plasma, these beam pulses go through a vacuum, reaching
In inertial confinement, fusion concepts actively pursued
the Brillouin limit. They carry a large portion of their energy
or proposed, kinetic beam energy compresses and heats a
in the form of electric and magnetic field energy stored in
thermonuclear target. The beam particles available for this
their self-fields, and with the aid of their self-fields these
task range from zero rest mass photons, moving with the
beam pulses can be focused by magnetic implosion onto a
velocity of light, to massive single projectiles magnetically
target. Most important of all, these magnetically confined
accelerated to a few 100 kmlS.l Particle beams possessing
electron beam pulses can become highly relativistic, making
sufficient intensity require large accelerators many miles
possible energy cumulation by Lorentz contraction. It is this
long, and the same is true for magnetically accelerated mas-
last possibility promising energy fluxes far beyond what can
sive projectiles. Beams of rest mass photons generated with
otherwise be reached.
lasers require no acceleration, but because of the inefficiency
A suitable technique to generate such beams was in the
of lasers possessing the right wavelength, the lasers needed,
past proposed by the author for a novel kind of particle ac-
too, become very large. The reason why the particle accel-
celerator to reach ultrahigh energies. 4 It employed an idea
erators are so large is that, in addition to the energy required
proposed many years ago, to generate a magnetically con-
for thermonuclear ignition, their beams must carry a large
fined electron cloud. s
amount of momentum. For electrons that, apart from the zero
rest mass photons, carry the smallest momentum, no large
accelerators would be needed, but electrons cannot be easily II. DESCRIPTION OF THE THERMONUCLEAR
IGNITION CONCEPT
stopped in a small target (an important requirement for ther-
monuclear microexplosion ignition). To stop intense relativ- To generate an electron cloud as the source for an in-
istic electron beams in a dense target, it was proposed to tense electron beam, we use the concept of inductive charge
make use of the two-stream instability,2 but to excite this injection proposed for the HIPAC (heavy ion particle accel-
instability is difficult. It was for this reason that efforts to- erator) device,S but in departing from the HIPAC device, the
ward thermonuclear microexplosion ignition by pulse-power injection takes place into a long magnetic solenoid, rather
generated intense relativistic electron beams were abandoned than into a toroidal magnetic field. The principle of the pro-
in favor of intense light ion beams. Like electron beams, they posed novel thermonuclear ignition concept is then explained
can be efficiently generated by electric pulse power in Fig. 1. As shown in the radial cross section, Fig. 1(a),
techniques,3 but unlike electron beams they can be easily electrons released from thermionic emitters are attached to a
stopped in a dense target. However, the projection and focus- solenoidal magnetic field rising in time, and move on a spi-
ing unto a small target poses a serious problem. For heavy raling trajectory into the evacuated space inside the solenoid,
ion beams requiring accelerators many miles long, the stop- where they are confined by the magnetic field. As shown in
ping power is less than what would be ideal, but they can at Fig. 1(b), the cloud is restrained from moving to the left side
Phys. Plasmas 2 (3), March 1995 1070-664X195/2(3)/733/8/$6.00 © 1995 American Institute of Physics 733
MS
TE
b
FIG. l. The (a) radial and (b) axial cross section: MS, magnetic solenoid; Ee, electron cloud; D, dense disk of relativistic electrons; TE, thermionic emitter;
S, switch; P, power supply; Me, magnetic mirror coil; T. thermonuclear target; V, liquid vortex, Te, thermonuclear microexplosion chamber.
end of the solenoid by a magnetic mirror field, but is permit- ered into a small volume, the proposed concept may open the
ted to move into the other direction. While drifting to the prospect for the ignition of deuterium targets.
right, the cloud is accelerated by its internal electric field, Finally, the standoff problem for the microexplosion can
resulting in the formation of an intense electron beam. It is be solved by replacing the last segment of the conducting
now proposed that during the axial expansion, the particle tube guiding the beam to the target by the core of a liquid
number density in the cloud is kept constant by radially com- metal vortex. For the generation of tritium, a liquid lithium
pressing it at the right amount. with the magnetic field rising vortex may be used.
in time. Through the compressive work of the magnetic field,
the head of the electron cloud is accelerated to high energies,
and if the electron number density in a comoving reference
III. GENERATION OF THE ELECTRON CLOUD
system of the head of the cloud is kept constant, the head is
Lorentz contracted. In describing the generation of the electron cloud by
After drifting a sufficiently large distance, the Lorentz inductive charge injection, we follow the analysis done for
contracted head of the electron cloud becomes a very intense the HIPAC device. 5
and energetic relativistic electron beam pulse, having the In a cylindrical coordinate system directed along the axis
shape of an annular disk. If this beam pulse is projected onto of the solenoid, we have from Maxwell's equations,
a grounded target as shown, the electric self-field of the
beam is neutralized, resulting in its implosion onto the target 1 aH
curl E = - - - (1)
by its unrestrained magnetic self-field. In the course of this c at '
implosion. all the energy stored in the beam pulse, that is its
electric, magnetic, and kinetic particle energy, is converted (2)
into magnetic energy. The energy delivered to the target is in
the form of an intense electromagnetic pulse, deposited in a The induced azimuthal electric field E", in combination with
thin layer of the target. The implosion resembles the dynamic the axial magnetic field Hz results in a radial drift motion,
pinch effect in nonrelativistic plasma physics, but because
the beam pulse here is highly relativistic, the instabilities E", r Hz
vr=c Hz = - '2 Hz' (3)
occurring in the nonrelativistic pinch effect are substantially
reduced by radiation damping. In the course of the implo-
The buildup of the cloud leads to a radial electric field E r '
sion, the electrons become nonrelativistic, reversing the Lor-
obtained from
entz contraction transforming the annular disk into a cylin-
drical pinch column. With the large magnetic fields reached div E=47Tne, (4)
in the imploded pinch column, thermonuclear bum is en-
with the result that
hanced by magnetic entrapment of the charged fusion prod-
ucts. Because a large amount of energy can be rapidly deliv- (5)
With 8-riyo-z, one finds from (26) for zo}>/ that , Vz ,) v<f>
F=e ( (1-f)E f - -cH <f> - e -
c Hz, (43)
Yo=2z olr, and hence
~- f
whereby (33) leads to (32), as in the nonrelativistic limit.
Since (32) turns out to be valid for the nonrelativistic domain F= e( ) yoH z - eH z · (44)
of the electron cloud located far behind the disk, and for the
ultrarelativistic part within the disk, (32) should at least be For the force of the self-field to become equal to the force of
approximately valid for the intermediate region as well. the externally applied field requires that f= lIyo. If, for ex-
Because v;lc 2=(1-y-2), one has ample, yo-104 , a rather small compensation of the electric
2v~ dv/dz=2c dv/dz=2c 2 y-3 dyldz, whereby (37) be- space charge would suffice. For a ten times larger space
comes charge compensation, which for yo-104 would mean that
f _10- 3 , the compressive effect of the self-magnetic field
I dy w; would correspond to an externally applied magnetic field in
y dz =2?z. (40)
the megagauss range. Furthermore, the magnetic compres-
sion velocity here can be much faster, because the space
Integration gives the distribution of y values within the disk,
charge neutralizing ions can be injected in a much shorter
y=yoexp(-~(82_Z2»),
time than the rise time for an externally applied field. By
0<z<8. (41) injecting the ions along the beam in a programmed manner, a
strong traveling magnetic wave of comparatively short wave-
With w~/c2=4Ir2, this can be also written as follows: length, propagating along the expanding cloud, can be gen-
erated, greatly enhancing energy cumulation toward the front
(82_Z2»)
y=Yo exp ( - r2 of the cloud.
The energy cumulation in the head of the cloud is deter-
mined by the Poynting vector,
= Yo
Z2
exp ( ::2- ~ ,
I) r
O<z<-. (42)
r Yo Yo s= cExH/47r= cE<f>H z 147r= S" (45)
Because of the relativistic mass increase of the electrons, the with E <f> given by (2), hence
disk acts like a heavy projectile driven by the gas of the
lighter, less relativistic, electrons positioned behind. It ex- S,= -(rI2)dldt(H;/87r). (46)
(47)
(48)