Deuterium-tritium fusion process in strong laser fields: Semiclassical simulation

TL;DR

This study models deuterium-tritium fusion in strong laser fields using a semiclassical approach, revealing enhanced tunneling and fusion cross sections driven by laser-induced nuclear quiver motion, with results compared to quantum approximations.

Contribution

It introduces a semiclassical simulation method for DT fusion in intense laser fields, highlighting the impact of laser-driven nuclear quiver motion on tunneling and fusion rates.

Findings

Laser fields significantly enhance tunneling penetrability.

Fusion cross sections increase with laser intensity and specific parameters.

Phase diagrams show conditions for optimal fusion enhancement.

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion process in the presence of strong laser fields with a semiclassical (SC) method. In this model, two nuclei with a given incident kinetic energy that closely approach each other are simulated by tracing the classical Newtonian trajectories in the combined Coulomb repulsive potentials and laser fields. At the nearest position or classical turning point, quantum tunneling through the Coulomb barrier emerges, and its penetrability is estimated with the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin formula. Nuclear fusion occurs after the tunneling, and the total fusion cross section takes the Gamow form. We find that the tunneling penetrability can be enhanced dramatically because the nuclei can closely approach each other due to the quiver motion of the charged nuclei driven by the intense laser fields. We then calculate the DT fusion section for a wide range of laser parameters according to various incident nuclei kinetic energies and obtain the phase diagrams for the enhanced DT fusion. We compare our SC results with the quantum results of the Kramers-Henneberger approximation and the Volkov state approximation.