Igniting a microexplosion by a microexplosion and some other controlled thermonuclear fusion scenarios with neutronless reactions
M.L. Shmatov Ioffe Institute, ul. Polytekhnicheskaya 26, St. Petersburg, 194021, Russian Federation
Several proposals on the power production application of neutronless fusion reactions and the ${\rm D}+{\rm D}\to ^3{\rm He}+{\rm n}+3.27$~MeV reaction are reviewed. Compressing low tritium fuel by thermal radiation from one or more D--T microexplosions possibly combined with one or more drivers is considered as the optimum ignition strategy for microexplosions with physically important D--D fusion reactions. Results are presented which show the incorrectness of three assumptions that argue that the ignition of the ${\rm p}+^{11}{\rm B}\to {3\alpha} +8.9$~MeV reaction can be facilitated by chain reactions. The delivery of lunar $^3{\rm He}$ as a thermonuclear fuel component for large-scale power production on the Earth is discussed from the viewpoint of the expedience problem.
Keywords: controlled thermonuclear fusion, neutronless fusion reaction, DD fusion, igniting a microexplosion by a microexplosion, lunar helium-3 PACS:25.60.Pj, 28.52.−s, 28.52.Cx, 52.57.Bc (all) DOI:10.3367/UFNe.2018.03.038304 URL: https://ufn.ru/en/articles/2019/1/f/ Citation: Shmatov M L "Igniting a microexplosion by a microexplosion and some other controlled thermonuclear fusion scenarios with neutronless reactions" Phys. Usp.62 70–81 (2019)