ICF: Recent achievements and perspectives

Summary

The U.S. Office of Fusion Energy is relying on the Department of Energy's Defense Programs (DP) ICF Program to provide the target physics data base for an Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) program. In the indirect-drive approach, the primary approach for heavy-ion beam driven fusion (HI) and for the glass-laser-based National Ignition Facility (NIF), the capsule is radiation driven, so that the implosion and burn physics requirements apply to both types of drivers. If the ion-driven hohlraums are heated to the same radiation temperature (T _r), then the requirements for hydrodynamic instability, implosion uniformity, and pulse shaping can be directly applied. In addition, at the same radiation temperature, X-ray hohlraum wall losses, radiation-driven hohlraum wall motion, and radiation transport are also directly applicable. These are the primary issues which affect coupling efficiency and hohlraum symmetry, so that the DP hohlraum physics program provides a solid base for calculating HI hohlraums. Progress on these issues on the Nova laser will be described.