Simulation and characterization of hot spots generated in deuterium–tritium plasma by fast quasi-monoenergetic ion beams

Abstract

In this work, a model for the calculation of the temperature field reached by a compressed deuterium–tritium plasma heated by fast quasi-monoenergetic Gaussian ion beams is presented. Furthermore, from simulations performed on a wide range of ion beam parameters the interest in the field of ion fast ignition, an analysis of the properties of the generated hot spot is carried out. We focus the study on the influence of the parameters of the ion beam (particle density, initial mean energy and energy spread) on the spatial temperature field of the heated region and on some relevant parameters of the hot spot such as length, average temperature, maximum temperature and its position. The results presented in this work were obtained for fully ionized vanadium ion beam in a wide range of the beam parameters and for a compressed deuterium–tritium plasma at matter density and temperature given by 500gcm-3 and 1keV, respectively.