Multiscale study of high energy attosecond pulse interaction with matter and application to proton-Boron fusion

TL;DR

This paper explores how high energy attosecond laser pulses interact with proton-Boron targets, demonstrating their potential to efficiently induce fusion reactions through numerical simulations and proposing a new fusion pathway.

Contribution

It introduces a novel investigation of high energy attosecond pulses for proton-Boron fusion, highlighting their advantages over multi-cycle pulses in ion acceleration and magnetic field generation.

Findings

Single-cycle attosecond pulses outperform multi-cycle pulses in ion acceleration.

High energy attosecond pulses effectively generate magnetic fields.

A new pathway for proton-Boron fusion using attosecond pulses is proposed.

Abstract

For several decades, the interest of the scientific community in aneutronic fusion reactions such as proton-Boron fusion has grown because of potential applications in different fields. Recently, many scientific teams in the world have worked experimentally on the possibility to trigger proton-Boron fusion using intense lasers demonstrating an important renewal of interest of this field. It is now possible to generate ultra-short high intensity laser pulses at high repetition rate. These pulses also have unique properties that can be leveraged to produce proton-Boron fusion reactions. In this article, we investigate the interaction of a high energy attosecond pulse with a solid proton-Boron target and the associated ion acceleration supported by numerical simulations. We demonstrate the efficiency of single-cycle attosecond pulses in comparison to multi-cycle attosecond pulses in ion acceleration and magnetic field generation. Using these results we also propose a path to proton-Boron fusion using high energy attosecond pulses.