Reaction-in-Flight Neutrons as a Signature for Shell Mixing in NIF capsules

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that reaction-in-flight neutrons can serve as a reliable diagnostic for detecting and quantifying shell material mixing into fuel in inertial confinement fusion capsules, using analytic and simulation methods.

Contribution

It introduces a new diagnostic approach linking RIF neutron production to shell-fuel mixing, providing a potential method for detailed mix imaging in fusion experiments.

Findings

RIF neutron production decreases with increased mixing.

The RIF to downscattered neutron ratio indicates the mix fraction.

Neutron imaging can map mixing distributions in high-yield capsules.

Abstract

We present analytic calculations and results from computational simulations showing that reaction-in-flight (RIF) neutrons act as a robust indicator for mixing of the ablator shell material into the fuel in DT capsules designed for the National Ignition Facility. The sensitivity of RIF neutrons to hydrodynamical mixing arises through the dependence of RIF production on charged-particle stopping lengths in the mixture of DT fuel and ablator material. Since the stopping power in the plasma is a sensitive function of the electron temperature and density, it is also sensitive to mix. RIF production scales approximately inversely with the degree of mixing taking place, and the ratio of RIF to downscattered neutrons provides a measure of the mix fraction and/or the mixing length. For sufficiently high-yield capsules, where spatially resolved RIF images may be possible, neutron imaging could be used to map RIF images into detailed mix images.