Thermal stability of a thermonuclear plasma for different confinement scaling laws

The thermal stability of the ignition curve is investigated using a simple OD model for a temperature dependent energy confinement time (tausub(E) is proportional to 1/Tsup(γ)). The stability limit in the (ntausub(E),T) plane is also calculated for a plasma with external heating. The degradation of confinement time with increasing temperature is found to be favourable for divergence temperature and minimum temperature for stable ignition. It also decreases the external power per unit volume necessary to reach divergence. On the contrary, it is extremely unfavourable for the required μsub(E) for divergence and ignition. Detailed results are given for the special case of the Kaye-Goldston scaling (γ=1.38)