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Lawson Criterion for Ignition Exceeded in an Inertial Fusion Experiment

H. Abu-Shawareb et al. (Indirect Drive ICF Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 075001 – Published 8 August 2022
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Abstract

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin “burn propagation” into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While “scientific breakeven” (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion.

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  • Received 25 February 2022
  • Revised 24 June 2022
  • Accepted 6 July 2022
  • Corrected 16 August 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.075001

© 2022 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Plasma Physics

Corrections

16 August 2022

Correction: The first initial of the 905th author (S. Patankar) was erroneously presented and has been fixed. The name of the 663rd author (O. L. Landen) appeared with a mistakenly applied footnote indicator, which has been removed. The omission of author names A. S. Awwal, T. Boehly, A. Fisher, M. S. Freeman, R. R. Leach, N. D. Masters, B. T. Sims, J. S. Stolken, M. Tobin, R. M. Vignes, and A. Wootton has been fixed.

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Fusion Turns Up the Heat

Published 8 August 2022

A laser-fusion scheme has achieved ignition—an important step on the road to energy production.

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Vol. 129, Iss. 7 — 12 August 2022

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