Publications
Exploring New Frontiers in Kinetic Physics in Inertial Confinement Fusion
The original objective of this Truman LDRD project was to explore the use of novel wave- particle plasma interactions in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research. However, the emergence of many exciting developments in the national ICF program, including the Sandia- led "MagLIF" effort, led to extensive reformulation of the LDRD objectives. In the spirit of the original proposal, the research purview was broadened to encompass all "kinetic" (i.e., non-hydrodynamic) phenomena relevant to ICF. Significant research accomplishments include: developing theory and modeling strategies describing nonlocal ion losses and fu- sion reactivity reduction in unique burning plasma assemblies, including magnetized and spatially-deformed plasmas; developing numerical and conceptual tools describing the rela- tionship between fuel magnetization and nuclear reaction histories in magneto-inertial fusion and applying these tools to groundbreaking MagLIF experiments on Sandia's Z Facility; and developing detailed analytic theories of the stability of imploding targets and applying them to uncover increasingly stable platforms for magnetically-driven implosions.