Fusion reactions initiated by laser-accelerated particle beams in a laser-produced plasma

Abstract

The advent of high-intensity-pulsed laser technology enables the generation of extreme states of matter under conditions that are far from thermal equilibrium. This in turn could enable different approaches to generating energy from nuclear fusion. Relaxing the equilibrium requirement could widen the range of isotopes used in fusion fuels permitting cleaner and less hazardous reactions that do not produce high-energy neutrons. Here we propose and implement a means to drive fusion reactions between protons and boron-11 nuclei by colliding a laser-accelerated proton beam with a laser-generated boron plasma. We report protonboron reaction rates that are orders of magnitude higher than those reported previously. Beyond fusion, our approach demonstrates a new means for exploring low-energy nuclear reactions such as those that occur in astrophysical plasmas and related environments.

Ion energy scaling under optimum conditions of laser plasma acceleration from solid density targets

“…Ion acceleration by intense ultrashort laser pulses has led to many original applications such as triggering of nuclear reactions [1,2]; research of warm dense matter [3]; laboratory astrophysics [4]; radiography [5][6][7]; fast ignition [8]; and hadron therapy [9]. Both experiments [10,11] and simulations [12] have demonstrated an increase of ion energy with a corresponding reduction of the target thickness.…”

Study of nuclear reactions in laser plasmas at future ELI-NP facility

“…The use of colliding plasma plumes suitable for nuclear physics studies was proposed few years ago [7] and recently adopted to achieve such goal [8]. The idea is the following: a first laser pulse impinging on a 13 C, 7 Li or 11 B solid thin target (few micro-meters) produces, through the TNSA (Target Normal Sheath Acceleration) [9] acceleration scheme, boron, carbon or lithium plasma.…”

Light dark matter candidates in intense laser pulses I: paraphotons and fermionic minicharged particles

“…The -so far inaccessible -field strengths to be attained in these high-intensity laser facilities |B B B| ∼ o[10 11 −10 12 ] G offer a genuine opportunity for studying the low energy sector of particle physics as well as for observing -among other hitherto undetected nonlinear QED phenomena [61][62][63][64][65][66] -the spontaneous production of electronpositron pairs [67][68][69]. While this constitutes a very strong motivation, the first estimates of the upper bounds resulting from operating facilities such as the Petawatt High-Energy Laser for heavy Ion eXperiments (PHELIX) [70] and the Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses (LULI) [71] might turn out to be competitive in the search for MCPs and even more promising than those derived from ELI and XCELS parameters. This has already been predicted theoretically for axionlike particles [58].…”

“…We are particularly interested in the nanosecond frontend of PHELIX [w 0 ≈ 100 − 150µm], since it operates with an infrared wavelength λ 0 ≃ 1053 nm [κ 0 ≃ 1.17 eV] and can reach a peak intensity I ≃ 10 16 W/cm 2 , corresponding to a parameter ξ ≃ 6.4 × 10 −2 in a pulse length τ ≃ 20 ns. In addition, we will study the results coming from the specification of the long high-energy pulse of 400 J at the Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses (LULI) [71] -currently in operation at Palaiseau, France. Similarly to the previous external source, we will focus ourselves on the nanosecond facility at LULI(2000) [w 0 ∼ 100 µm], which can operate with the same central frequency as PHELIX once its fundamental harmonic is used.…”