Investigation of proton-boron-11 degenerate fuel pellet plasma ignition conditions by proton beam driver in fast ignition process

Compression of fuel pellets in the degenerate state in inertial confinement fusion minimizes the energy required for compression. The increasing development of chirped pulse amplification lasers and the fast ignition method have made researchers to use advanced fuels such as deuterium-helium-3 and proton-boron-11. Proton-boron-11 is a promising source of nuclear fusion energy fuel due to its isotope abundance and purity. In this paper, the transport of charged particles is investigated in proton–11 degenerate fuel. In this study, the confinement parameter has been estimated as ρR = 20 g/cm2 with the help of a proton driver in the fast ignition method for the proton-boron-11 degenerate fuel pellet with the ratio of boron-11 to proton ε=0.3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varepsilon =0.3$$\end{document}. The energy deposited coefficients of the accelerated proton beam driver, using the target normal sheath acceleration method with energy 1 MeV, have been calculated using the Li-Petrasso stopping power model. The results show that for the confinement parameter as ρR = 20 g/cm2, the temperature of the electrons falls below the Fermi temperature. Under these conditions, the proton driver with the optimal energy of 1 MeV at the ignition temperature of 550 eV penetrates the fuel pellet to a depth of 0.17 μm, it deposits approximately 65% of its energy in the ignition region.