Re:Nuclear physicist explains why fusion ignition is hailed ...
by lazide on Monday December 19, 2022 @09:29PM
(#34060793)
The hohlraum is destroyed almost instantly by the reaction.
The reaction is initiated by the lasers.
You can’t actually use a hammer to initiate it at any useful scale because hammers can’t create the appropriate pressures and temperatures to initiate the process at the scale needed to produce a useful energy output. Which is why the lasers.
So no, the lasers are not immaterial at all.
You want to use lasers to initiate some fusion, you can do that using a tabletop laser lab (although magnetic confinement and big voltages is much simpler).
So this is the first machine where we're sure: it wasn't fusion caused by lasers, it was fusion caused by neutron pressure! Where did that neutron pressure come from? From other atoms fusing!
Note also that the sun does NOT do this. Fusion inside the sun is powered by falling atoms converting their falling energy first into heat then into singular fusion events, which essentially explode and throw a lot of atoms back up. Then the cycle begins again. Fusion inside the sun is a self-limiting reaction, which is why stars don't just blow up once, but "burn" over a long time. All the fusion inside the sun really does is slow down gravity for a little bit, then immediately stop. Gravity is producing the heat from the sun.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Fusion