Laser Plasmas and Nuclear Energy

ISBN-13: 9781468420876 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 454 str.

Heinrich Hora

Opis

The concept is very obvious and very simple: To heat solid deuterium or mixtures of deuterium and tritium (superheavy hydrogen) by laser pulses so rapidly that despite the resulting expansion and cooling there still take place so many nuclear fusion reactions tnat the energy produced is greater than the laser energy that had to be applied.

Spis treści

1. Introduction.- 1.1 Nuclear Fusion.- 1.2 Laser-Produced Nuclear Fusion.- 2. Lasers.- 2.1 Laser Condition.- 2.2 Operation of Lasers.- 2.3 Available Lasers.- 3. Early Measurements and Gas Breakdown.- 3.1 Gas Breakdown.- 3.2 Plasmas Produced from Solids in Vacuum (Linlor Effect).- 4. Microscopic Properties of Plasma.- 4.1 Debye Length.- 4.2 Plasma Frequency.- 4.3 Collisions.- 5. Macroscopic Plasma Physics.- 5.1 Ohm’s Law and Electromagnetic Waves.- 5.2 Equation of Motion and Equations of Conservation.- 5.3 Homogeneous Heating.- 6. Refractive Index and Absorption.- 6.1 Linear Properties.- 6.2 Nonlinear Absorption.- 6.3 Relativistic Absorption.- 6.4 Anomalous Absorption and Instabilities.- 7. Dielectric Nonlinear Forces and Dynamic Absorption.- 7.1 Basic Properties of the Dielectric Nonlinear Force.- 7.2 Transferred Momentum and Ion Energies.- 7.3 Predominance of the Nonlinear Force.- 7.4 Self-Focusing of Laser Beams in Plasma.- 7.5 Numerical Examples of Nonlinear Acceleration.- 8. Theory of Laser-Induced Nuclear Fusion.- 8.1 Inertial Confinement.- 8.2 Gas-Dynamic Compression.- 8.3 Direct and More Efficient Transfer of Laser Energy into Mechanical Compression.- 8.4 New Concepts and Nuclear Fission.- 9. Experiments for Laser-Induced Nuclear Fusion.- 9.1 Irradiation of Spherical Targets.- 9.2 Neutron Generation.- 9.3 Anomalous Experimental Results.- 10. Conclusions.- 11. References.- 12. Appendix. List of Reprinted Papers.- “The Conditions of Plasma Heating by the Optical Quantum Generator.”.- “Experiments on the Observation of Neutron Emission at the Focus of High-power Laser Radiation on a Lithium Deuteride Surface.”.- “Ion Energies Produced by Laser Giant Pulse.”.- “The Initial Stage of the Laser-induced Gas Breakdown.”.- “Experiments on Self-focusing in Laser-produced Plasmas.”.- “Intense Electron Emission from Laser-produced Plasmas.”.- “Experimental Result of Free Targets.”.- “On the Production of a Plasma by Giant Laser Pulses.”.- “Some Results of the Self-similarity Model.”.- “Hydrogen Plasma Production by Giant Pulse Lasers.”.- “Optical Constants of Fullyionized Hydrogen Plasma for Laser Radiation.”.- “Laser-Induced Instabilities and Anomalous Absorption in Dense Plasmas.”.- “Nonlinear Confining and Deconfining Forces Associated with the Interaction of Laser Radiation with a Plasma.”.- “Ponderomotive Forces on Laser-produced Plasmas.”.- “Nonlinear Forces in Laser-produced Plasmas.”.- “Physical Mechanisms for Laser-Plasma Parametric Instabilities.”.- “Laser-Induced Implosion and Thermonuclear Burn.”.- “Exact Steady-state Analogy of Transient Gas Compression by Coalescing Waves.”.- “Laser-driven Implosion of Spherical DT Targets to Thermonuclear Burn Conditions.”.- “Nuclear Fusion Reactions in Laser-produced Solid Deuterium Plasmas.”.- “Heating of Laser Plasmas for Thermonuclear Fusion.”.- “Neutron Generation in Spherical Irradiation of a Target by High-power Laser Radiation.”.- “Anomalous Heating of a Plasma by Lasers.”.- “Neutron Emission from Laser-produced Plasmas.”.- “Saturation of Stimulated Back-scattered Radiation in Laser Plasmas.”.- “Pair Production by Relativistic Electrons from an Intense Laser Focus.”.- 13. Subject Index.