Simulating fusion reactions from Coulomb explosions within a transport approach

TL;DR

This paper models nuclear fusion reactions from Coulomb explosions of deuterium clusters induced by high-intensity lasers using a transport approach, calibrating neutron yields and analyzing dynamics across different system sizes.

Contribution

It introduces a transport simulation framework incorporating inelastic D+D reactions and calibrates neutron yields, extending understanding of fusion reactions in laser-induced plasma systems.

Findings

Neutron yield calibration matches reaction rate predictions.

Kinetic energy spectra differ significantly when neutrons are abundantly produced.

Extrapolation from small to large systems aligns with experimental data.

Abstract

We have studied nuclear fusion reactions from the Coulomb explosion of deuterium clusters induced by high-intensity laser beams within a transport approach. By incorporating the D+D $\rightarrow$ n + He$^3$ channel as inelastic collisions based on the stochastic method, we have calibrated the neutron yield from the simulation in a box system with that from the reaction rate equation. After justifying the Coulomb explosion of a single cluster by comparing results with available theoretical limits, we have then investigated the dynamics from Coulomb explosions of systems with different cluster numbers and different deuteron numbers in clusters. We find that the kinetic energy spectrum of deuterons at the final stage is different from that when neutrons are abundantly produced, corresponding to significantly different reaction rates. We also extrapolate the neutron yield result from small systems to large systems based on an intuitive parameterized form and compare with the available experimental result. The present framework can be extended by incorporating more channels, and useful for further studies of nuclear fusion reactions in plasma systems at higher energies reached in more recent experiments.