Observations of kinetic and multi-ion effects in DT and D3He implosions relevant to ICF shock phase

Neel Kabadi

MIT

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

5:00pm

NW17-218

PSFC Student Seminars

During the shock-convergence phase of ICF implosions there are steep spatial gradients and the ion mean free path becomes long compared to the system size, indicating that multi-ion and kinetic effects may be important. Yet, almost all ICF simulations use an average-ion hydrodynamic approach. Previous work has indicated substantial burn averaged species separation and possibly other kinetic effects in D³He plasmas with conditions relevant to the NIF shock-phase. In this presentation I will show recent work conducted on the Omega laser facility recreating these conditions in DT plasmas. Both DT and D3He burn averaged observables are well modeled using an equilibrating two ion temperature model with little to no species separation.