Determination of plasma screening effects for thermonuclear reactions in laser-generated plasmas

TL;DR

This paper proposes a theoretical method to measure plasma screening effects on thermonuclear reactions in laser-generated plasmas, enabling better understanding of nuclear processes in stellar environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental setup and modeling approach to determine plasma screening enhancement factors for fusion reactions in laboratory conditions.

Findings

Reaction event differences can reveal plasma screening effects.

The setup is feasible with current laser infrastructure.

Potential to improve nuclear reaction cross-section measurements in astrophysics.

Abstract

Due to screening effects, nuclear reactions in astrophysical plasmas may behave differently than in the laboratory. The possibility to determine the magnitude of these screening effects in colliding laser-generated plasmas is investigated theoretically, having as a starting point a proposed experimental setup with two laser beams at the Extreme Light Infrastructure facility. A laser pulse interacting with a solid target produces a plasma through the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration scheme, and this rapidly streaming plasma (ion flow) impacts on a secondary plasma created by the interaction of a second laser pulse on a gas jet target. We model this scenario here and calculate the reaction events for the astrophysically relevant reaction $^{13}$C($^4$He, $n$)$^{16}$O. We find that it should be experimentally possible to determine the plasma screening enhancement factor for fusion reactions by detecting the difference in reaction events between two scenarios of ion flow interacting with the plasma target and a simple gas target. This provides a way to evaluate nuclear reaction cross-sections in stellar environments and can significantly advance the field of nuclear astrophysics.