Progress in inertial confinement fusion physics and computational capabilities at DENIM

The contribution to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) at the Institute of Nuclear Fusion (DENIM) of the Polytechnical University of Madrid has centred on the target physics area to improve the description of the different processes involved. Moreover, target-blanket coupling and new methodologies for materials activation and damage have been developed. The energy deposition by laser or ion beams in the plasma, radiation transport, atomic physics, charged particles, suprathermal and thermal electron transport were the main topics. Laser-plasma interaction is studied with two-dimensional ray tracing that takes into account absorption and scattering, and the source of suprathermal electrons from resonance absorption and Raman scattering is computed. Particle-in-cell simulations have been added to the present capabilities at DENIM and some results on stimulated Raman scattering and microinstabilities in ion beam-plasma interaction have been obtained. The tabular DENIM Atomic Library has been generated using newly developed atomic physics computational capabilities on the basis of average atom models with different quantum treatments and a steady-state non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) model. The effect of the transport of knock-on deuterons and tritons by neutron scattering has been incorporated recently. Furthermore, a detailed calculation of the isotopic evolution by neutron reactions, for hydrogen and lithium isotopes, has been combined with knock-on transport procedures for calculating the suprathermal fusion along the ion relaxation path. Some results are presented on target analysis, considering laser or ion beams with different pulse tailoring. Numerical simulations have been performed to study the influence of aspect ratios and masses on the efficiency of the implosion and burnup of ICF targets. (author). 19 refs, 4 figs