Rostock 2019 – scientific programme

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AKE: Arbeitskreis Energie

AKE 1: Nuclear Fusion

AKE 1.3: Invited Talk

Monday, March 11, 2019, 11:15–11:45, U A-Esch 1

Inertial Confinement Fusion - will Fast Ignition provide new progress? — •Markus Roth — Technische Universtät Darmstadt, Institut für Kernphysik, Schlossgartenstrasse 9, 64289 Darmstadt

Laser driven fusion experiments have made significant progress over the last years. Since the beginning of the ICF campaign at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, although the fusion peak power during the experiments has exceeded 1 PW, there is a factor two to three to achieve a burning plasma and sustainable self-heating. One alternate route not only to achieve ignition, but high gain is the concept of fast ignition. Laser driven ion beams are among the most intense particle sources available today. Due to their short pulse duration they could heat any material to high temperatures without hydrodynamic ambiguities. Heating of strongly compressed matter is interesting for two reasons: it explores a parameter space new to experimental access and addresses the question of fast ignition.

We have successfully performed experiments at the ORION and OMEGA facilities to use laser driven proton beams to heat a compressed target and are planning for an integrated experiment at NIF. While those experiments are of fundamental interest the concept also addresses the physics of proton fast ignition. We will present the status of fusion research, experiments and the preceding tests and introduce a route to a first real PFI experiment.