Angular distribution of neutrons from high-intensity laser–target interactions

Abstract

The angular distribution of neutrons formed in nuclear fusion reactions of a high-energy deuteron beam with a deuterated polyethylene (CD 2 ) was investigated with a Monte Carlo ion beam-target deposition model. The initial conditions were obtained from a two-dimensional particle-in-cell laser-target deposition model. The neutron yield and its angular distribution were studied as a function of peak laser intensity, laser pulse duration and primary target thickness. The proposed scheme for neutron production delivers a typical neutron yield of 10 −5 -10 −3 neutrons/ion and 10 5 -10 7 neutrons J −1 laser energy.

Optimizing Laser-accelerated Ion Beams for a Collimated Neutron Source

“…The maximum yields for monoenergetic ions may be linearly scaled to the total incident particles, and we gain a sense for the degree of collimation of the neutrons which cannot be exceeded for a given energy due to the geometry of the energy-angle cross sections. At 0.1 MeV, we find 6.8 x 10 -8 n/ion, 1 MeV yields 8.8x10 -6 n/ion, and 10 MeV yields 5.1 x 10 -4 n/ion, in reasonable agreement with [10]. In the forward direction, the yields are calculated to be 0.1 MeV -1.0x10 -8 n/sr/ion, 1 MeV -2.2x10 -6 n/sr/ion, 10MeV -4.3x10-4 n/sr/ion, which match the results in [4].…”

“…The straight-line trajectory assumption has been shown in Ref. [10] to be a reasonable approximation. Finally, the consideration of neutron generation by means other than D-D fusion events has been explored by Toupin et.…”

“…Neutron yields from the dual target configuration are calculated in a similar manner to previous studies [4,5,6,7,10]. The model uses a Monte-Carlo method by randomly selecting individual deuterium ions from the specified incident ion spectrum.…”

Research opportunities with compact accelerator-driven neutron sources

“…However, the practice of harvesting the useful neutrons within the complex emission background and the conditioning of the target for sustained operation has yet to be worked out. [22,23] …”

Generation of GeV ion bunches from high-intensity laser-target interactions

“…[29][30][31] The simulations are performed with a 2D relativistic electromagnetic PIC model in a 2D Cartesian coordinate system. 29 The specifics of the numerical technique are outlined in Ref.…”