Cryogenic Deuterium--Tritium Implosions on OMEGA

This talk summarizes the results on improving performance and the progress in theoretical understanding of cryogenic deuterium--tritium implosions on OMEGA. As shown recently,\footnote{I. V. Igumenshchev \textit{et al.,} Phys~. Plasmas \textbf{17}, 122708 (2010).} the cross-beam energy transfer (CBET) is one of the main factors limiting hydrodynamic efficiency of direct-drive implosions. To tune the CBET model used in hydro simulations, a series of warm plastic implosions was carried out on OMEGA. Based on the result of such a model, it was found that CBET contributes up to 15{\%} to the incident energy scattering and up to 20{\%} loss in hydro-efficiency in symmetric-drive implosions. Mitigation strategies for energy loss caused by CBET as well as recent improvements in target quality that resulted in significant improvement (by a factor of two) in target yields will be discussed. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inertial Confinement Fusion under Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC52-08NA28302.