A 6-MJ P4 target for heavy ion inertial fusion

A new target option for energy applications of the heavy ion inertial fusion is analyzed. It has a spherical hohlraum and is irradiated by ion beams along the directions of the zeros of the fourth Legendre polynomial P4. The target performance is simulated with a one-dimensional (1-D) three-temperature hydrodynamics code and with a two-dimensional view factor code. Its efficiency is shown to depend crucially on the structure of the hohlraum wall which, simultaneously, plays a role of the X-ray converter. For the optimized pulse power profile, a 1-D energy gain of G = 78 is calculated with the input energy of Edr = 6.1 MJ in the form of 5 GeV 209Bi ions focused on the target sphere with the outer radius of R = 6.37 mm. (author)