Rotation-Aided Confinement in Magneto-Inertial Fusion Schemes

ORAL

Abstract

We consider a standard MagLIF target, where instead of a gas-prefill that anticipates being preheated by the Z-beamlet laser, its mass is contained in a cryo-DT fiber on axis. A 1 MA pulsed power device can be used to turn the fiber into a hot plasma, which would then fill up the capsule, just before it is imploded using a 25 MA driver, such as the Z- Machine. In such a scenario, an axial $B_{z}$ would trigger an azimuthal rotation, $v_{\phi}$. One can analytically illustrate that for a given uniform $B_{z}$, and a $B_{\phi}(r,z)$, the $z$-dependence introduced by the additional driver, will yield a nontrivial $J_{r}$ that would spin the plasma via the $\vec{J}\times\vec{B}$-force. Here we investigate how much rotation is to be expected in such a target, and to what extent it may improve confinement performance over laser-driven preheating. We carry out this investigation using the multi-physics MHD AMR code, FLASH.

*Supported in part at the Flash Center for Computational Science at the University of Chicago, by DOE NNSA through the Center for Matter at Extreme Conditions and through Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Authors

  • Marissa Adams

    • University of Rochester, University of Chicago
  • Eddie Hansen

    • University of Chicago
  • Benjamin Khiar

    • University of Chicago
  • Klaus Weide

    • University of Chicago
  • Petros Tzeferacos

    • University of Chicago
    • U. Chicago
    • university of chicago
  • Pierre Gourdain

    • University of Rochester