Centrifugal Confinement Fusion Thruster

TL;DR

This paper investigates centrifugal confinement fusion as a compact and stable alternative for propulsion, demonstrating through simulations that energetic ion confinement is more feasible than previously thought.

Contribution

It provides new insights into energetic ion confinement in centrifugal fusion, challenging prior pessimistic estimates and clarifying the underlying physics.

Findings

Test-particle simulations show improved energetic ion confinement.

Previous adiabatic invariance estimates were overly pessimistic.

Centrifugal fusion offers potential advantages for propulsion applications.

Abstract

Centrifugal confinement fusion, a promising alternative to toroidal confinement devices like tokamaks and stellarators, leverages supersonic plasma rotation within a magnetic mirror configuration to achieve simplified coil design, compactness, and enhanced stability. This brief article explores the potential of centrifugal confinement fusion for propulsion applications. A previous concern regarding the escape of energetic ions, essential for propulsion, is addressed through test-particle simulations. The results indicate that the earlier estimate based on adiabatic invariance was overly pessimistic, and the underlying physics is clarified.