Direct conversion of muon catalyzed fusion energy

In this paper a method of direct conversion of muon catalyzed fusion (MCF) energy is proposed in order to reduce the cost of muon production. This MCF concept is based on a pellet composed of many thin solid deuterium-tritium (DT) rods encircled by a metallic circuit immersed in a magnetic field. The direct energy conversion is the result of the heating of the pellet by beam injection and fusion alphas. The expanding DT rods causes the change of magnetic flux linked by the circuit. Our calculation shows that the direct conversion method reduces the cost of one muon by a factor of approximately 2.5 over the previous methods. The present method is compatible with a reactor using the pellet concept, where the muon sticking is reduced by the ion cyclotron resonance heating and the confinement of the exploding pellet is handled by magnetic fields and the coronal plasma. 17 refs., 6 figs