A laser plasma soliton fusion scheme

Abstract

We introduce a novel and generic fusion scheme enabled by laser-plasma solitons, which promises to overcome several fundamental obstructions to reaching the breakeven condition. To demonstrate that, we invoke both deuterium-tritium (DT) and proton-boron (pB) as fuels. The intense electromagnetic field trapped inside the soliton significantly enhances the DT and pB fusion cross sections. Its ponderomotive potential evacuates electrons almost instantly, while the ions left behind are accelerated by the unshielded Coulomb field to kinetic energies suitable for fusion reaction on a longer time scale. Such a difference in time scales renders a time window for fusion to occur efficiently in an electron-free environment. We inject two consecutive lasers, where the first would excite plasma solitons and the second, much more intense and with a matched lower frequency, would fortify the soliton electromagnetic field resonantly. Solitons are known to expand during its lifetime, which significantly increases the number of ions to participate in the fusion process and the ion propagation distance. We show that the breakeven condition is attainable for both DT and pB cases. Invoking fiber laser and the iCAN laser technologies for high repetition rate and high intensity operation, gigawatt output may be conceivable.