Theory of hydro-equivalent ignition for inertial fusion and its applications to OMEGA and the National Ignition Facility

Abstract

The theory of ignition for inertial confinement fusion capsules [R. Betti et al., Phys. Plasmas 17, 058102 (2010)] is used to assess the performance requirements for cryogenic implosion experiments on the Omega Laser Facility. The theory of hydrodynamic similarity is developed in both one and two dimensions and tested using multimode hydrodynamic simulations with the hydrocode DRACO [P. B. Radha et al., Phys. Plasmas 12, 032702 (2005)] of hydro-equivalent implosions (implosions with the same implosion velocity, adiabat, and laser intensity). The theory is used to scale the performance of direct-drive OMEGA implosions to the National Ignition Facility (NIF) energy scales and determine the requirements for demonstrating hydro-equivalent ignition on OMEGA. Hydro-equivalent ignition on OMEGA is represented by a cryogenic implosion that would scale to ignition on the NIF at 1.8 MJ of laser energy symmetrically illuminating the target. It is found that a reasonable combination of neutron yield and areal density for OMEGA hydro-equivalent ignition is 3 to 6 × 1013 and ∼0.3 g/cm2, respectively, depending on the level of laser imprinting. This performance has not yet been achieved on OMEGA.