Proposed generation and compression of a target plasma for MTF

Abstract

Magnetized target fusion (MTF), in which a magnetothermally insulated plasma is hydrodynamically compressed to fusion conditions, represents an approach to controlled fusion which avoids difficulties of both traditional inertial confinement and magnetic confinement approaches. It appears possible to compress a magnetothermally insulated plasma to fusion ignition conditions using existing, relatively inexpensive drivers, such as pulsed power devices (including explosive pulsed power). Hence, MTF may represent a means to demonstrate and study ignited plasmas with a very small capital investment. An ongoing LANL explosive pulsed power collaboration with the Russian VNIIEF Laboratory at Arzamas 16 is partly motivated by this application. We are proposing to demonstrate the feasibility of magnetized target fusion by: (1) creating a suitable magnetized target plasma, and (2) performing preliminary liner compression experiments using existing pulsed power facilities and demonstrated liner performance. The required plasma conditions vary for different drivers, but are approximately described by temperature >50 eV, density >10/sup -6/ gm/cm/sup 3/, current of several hundred kiloamperes, and dimensions of one to a few cm (giving an embedded magnetic field of about 50 kG). The initial candidate for creating the target plasma is a fiber-initiated Z-pinch. These pinches have already been created with relevant parameters, but need to be optimized for the MTF application. The target plasma would be diagnosed and optimized inside a static liner, using interferometry, spectroscopy, and other diagnostic tools.