The use of intense laser light to bring about thermonuclear reactions in a plasma is of considerable current interest. We present detailed analytical and computational studies which show the feasibility of laser-driven fusion. The required laser technology and the presently anticipated practical difficulties are discussed in outline.

Laser-driven fusion

Magnetic fields in the megagauss range have been observed in the laser-produced plasma near the focus of a high-power laser pulse. Faraday-rotation measurements utilizing the light of a probing beam and the specularly reflected laser light both show the presence of these large fields.

Faraday-Rotation Measurements of Megagauss Magnetic Fields in Laser-Produced Plasmas

The intense thermal energy flux emanating from the critical layer in laser‐produced plasmas is shown to generate an instability that derives from the magnetic field dependence of the thermal conductivity. This implies that B fields, with their attendant nonuniform heating effects, will occur even in uniformly irradiated spherical pellets or plane slabs. These fields may play a role in attempts to compress pellets for fusion, for example, by being partially trapped and amplified by compression in the interior of a pellet.

Field‐generating thermal instability in laser‐heated plasmas

Results of a numerical simulation model are presented. Internally generated megagauss magnetic fields are produced which tend to impede and deform the heat flow into the target plasma beyond the laser-energy deposition layer. Two new instabilities are also discussed.

Laser Target Model

A kinetic theory of ponderomotive effects and magnetic field generation is presented. For a comparison with standard fluid theories, explicit equations for momentum and energy conservations are established. As an example, it is shown that collisions do not lead to the usual resistive drag. In the important case of magnetic field generation via resonant absorption, three regimes with different behavior are found. In the collision‐dominated regime of the parameters, the main source of the magnetic field is the off‐diagonal terms of the particle pressure tensor. An intermediate regime appears when the nonlinear effects are collisionless and the amplitude of electromagnetic field due to the resonance absorption mechanism is limited by the plasma resistivity. In the collisionless regime, the validity of published results is extended by a self‐consistent nonlinear calculation. As a result, the distribution function of electrons may include suprathermal tails, and the magnetic field generated does not appear explicitly in the formula.

Ponderomotive effects and magnetic field generation in radiation plasma interaction

Using numerical simulation, it was found that, with the inclusion of thermally‐generated magnetic fields, about 3 × 104 neutrons are produced in 2 nsec and the electron temperature rose as high as 15 keV in a target heated by a 4‐nsec, 80‐J laser pulse.

Role of spontaneous magnetic fields in a laser-created deuterium plasma

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Role of spontaneous magnetic fields in a laser-created deuterium plasma