Abstract Details
Abstracts
Author: Kehfei Liu
Requested Type: Pre-Selected Invited
Submitted: 2019-02-26 15:41:33
Co-authors: Alexander W. Chao
Contact Info:
University of Kentucky
Dept of Physics and Astronomy,
Lexington, KY 40506
United States
Abstract Text:
A feasibility study of fusion reactors based on accelerators is carried out.
We consider a novel scheme where the beam from the accelerator hits the target plasma on the resonance of the fusion reaction to increase reactivity and establish characteristic criteria for a workable reactor. The critical temperature of the plasma is determined from the stopping power of the beam in the plasma. The needed plasma lifetime is determined from the width of the resonance, the beam velocity and the plasma density. We estimate the critical beam flux by balancing the energy of fusion production against the plasma thermo-energy and the loss due to stopping power for the case of an inert plasma. While the critical temperatures based on the d + t, d + He^3 and p + B^11 reactions turn out to be several times lower than the corresponding ones for the thermonuclear reactors and the triple product of plasma density, temperature and lifetime is about 50 times smaller than the Lawson criterion, the critical flux in the range of $10^{21} - 10^{23}/cm^2/s$ for the plasma density $rho_t = 10^{14}/cm^3$ can be a challenge.
The above study is published [1]. We will present a follow up study on the conceptual designs of such reactors.
Reference:
[1] K. F. Liu and A. W. Chao,
``Accelerator Based Fusion Reactor,''
Nuclear Fusion 57, 084002 (2017),
doi:10.1088/1741-4326/aa7642,
[arXiv:1707.03043
Comments:
The accelerator based fusion reactor is a new approach which I would like to share with people in the field and get feedbacks and advices from the audience.
