A performance study of a high-gain target for heavy-ion beam fusion

Summary

Through numerical simulations, a target has been designed to produce, when irradiated with the appropriate heavy-ion beam, an energy gain close to 100. The thermofluid numerical studies for the dynamical behaviour of this target, made with the 1D code CLIFF and with the 2D code COBI-1, have shown some interesting features: the fusion fuel ignites almost contemporaneously and ignition occurs only for asymmetries in the beam intensity between pole and equator of less than 6%. Radiation losses play an important role when asymmetries are present. Actually, when radiation transfer is switched-off in the code, ignition has been observed even for asymmetries of 10%.