On Stability of Targets for Plasma Jet Induced Magnetoinertial Fusion

Abstract: The compression and stability of plasma targets for the plasma jet-induced magneto-inertial fusion (PJMIF) have been investigated via large scale simulations using the FronTier code capable of explicit tracking of material interfaces. In the PJMIF concept, a plasma liner, formed by the merger of a large number of radial, highly supersonic plasma jets, implodes on a magnetized plasma target and compresses it to conditions of the fusion ignition. A multi-stage computational approach for simulations of the liner-target interaction and the compression of plasma targets has been developed to minimize computing time. Simulations revealed important features of the target compression process, including instability and disintegration of targets. The non-uniformity of the leading edge of the liner, caused by plasma jets as well as oblique shock waves between them, leads to instabilities during the target compression. By using front tracking, the evolution of targets has been studied in 3-dimensional simulations. Optimization studies of target compression with different number of jets have also been performed.