Simulations of effective heating in heavy-ion beam-fusion: High density plasmas in plasma focus devices

In order to understand the heating process during proton-boron11 (P-B11) fusion in a high density pinched plasma, we investigate the coalescence of two current loops, consisting of two ion species (protons, boron), using an electromagnetic relativistic particle-in-cell code. We found that the boron and protons can be heated up to energies of respectively MeV and 400 keV, in the direction perpendicular to the current. The electron temperature in the x- and y-direction is approximately 100 keV. The heating mechanism is due to the generation of transverse electric fields by the spacial charge separation of the two ion species. The plasma is confined near to the core of pinched filament by a 180 million gauss magnetic field. We found that the ratio between the output fusion power density and the initial input energy density is approximately 330 without considering the energy losses. The real gain can be calculated from the ratio between the fusion power density and the Bremsstrahlung power density, which is about 1.6. We conclude that P-B11 fusion using a high density plasma in a plasma focus device is achievable.