Species separation and modification of neutron diagnostics in inertial-confinement fusion

Abstract: The different behaviours of deuterium (D) and tritium (T) in the hot spot of marginally-igniting cryogenic DT inertial-confinement fusion (ICF) targets are investigated with an ion Fokker-Planck model. With respect to an equivalent single-species model, a higher density and a higher temperature are found for T in the stagnation phase of the target implosion. In addition, the stagnating hot spot is found to be less dense but hotter than in the single-species case. As a result, the fusion reaction yield in the hot spot is significantly increased. Fusion neutron diagnostics of the implosion find a larger ion temperature as deduced from DT reactions than from DD reactions, in good agreement with NIF experimental results. ICF target designs should thus definitely take ion-kinetic effects into account.