Autoresonant Removal of Fusion Products in Mirror Machines

TL;DR

This paper proposes using autoresonance, a phase-locking technique, to efficiently remove fusion ash particles from magnetic mirror confinement devices, improving reactor operation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel autoresonance-based method for ash removal in magnetic mirror fusion reactors, supported by simulations and phase space analysis.

Findings

Effective removal of ash particles demonstrated in simulations.

DT fuel remains confined while ash is expelled.

Method applicable to advanced aneutronic reactors.

Abstract

Magnetic confinement fusion reactors produce ash particles that must be removed for efficient operation. It is suggested to use autoresonance (a continuous phase-locking between anharmonic motion and a chirped drive) to remove the ash particles from a magnetic mirror, the simplest magnetic confinement configuration. An analogy to the driven pendulum is established via the guiding center approximation. The full 3D dynamics is simulated for $\alpha$ particles (the byproduct of DT fusion) in agreement with the approximated 1D model. Monte Carlo simulations sampling the phase space of initial conditions are used to quantify the efficiency of the method. The DT fuel particles are out of the bandwidth of the chirped drive and, therefore, stay in the mirror for ongoing fusion. The method is also applicable for advanced, aneutronic reactors, such as p-$^{11}$B.