Model-independent determination of the astrophysical S-factor in laser-induced fusion plasmas

Abstract

In this work, we present a new and general method for measuring the astrophysical S-factor of nuclear reactions in laser-induced plasmas and we apply it to d(d,n)${}^3$He. The experiment was performed with the Texas Petawatt laser, which delivered 150-270 fs pulses of energy ranging from 90 to 180 J to D${}_2$ or CD${}_4$ molecular clusters. After removing the background noise, we used the measured time-of-flight data of energetic deuterium ions to obtain their energy distribution. We derive the S-factor using the measured energy distribution of the ions, the measured volume of the fusion plasma and the measured fusion yields. This method is model-independent in the sense that no assumption on the state of the system is required, but it requires an accurate measurement of the ion energy distribution especially at high energies and of the relevant fusion yields. In the d(d,n)${}^3$He and ${}^3$He(d,p)${}^4$He cases discussed here, it is very important to apply the background subtraction for the energetic ions and to measure the fusion yields with high precision. While the available data on both ion distribution and fusion yields allow us to determine with good precision the S-factor in the d+d case (lower Gamow energies), for the d+${}^3$He case the data are not precise enough to obtain the S-factor using this method. Our results agree with other experiments within the experimental error, even though smaller values of the S-factor were obtained. This might be due to the plasma environment differing from the beam target conditions in a conventional accelerator experiment.

References in corpus (6)

• Laser-driven nonlinear cluster dynamics
• Precision Measurements of d(d,p)t and d(d,n)^3He Total Cross Sections at Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis Energies
• Measurement of the plasma astrophysical S factor for the 3He(D, p)4He reaction in exploding molecular clusters
• Temperature measurements of fusion plasmas produced by petawatt laser-irradiated D2-3He or CD4-3He clustering gases
• Experimental study of fusion neutron and proton yields produced by petawatt-laser-irradiated D2-3He or CD4-3He clustering gases
• Chaos driven fusion enhancement factor at astrophysical energies

Cited by in corpus (8)

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• Measurements of D-D fusion neutrons generated in nanowire array laser plasma using Timepix3 detector
• Indication of p + 11B Reaction in Laser Induced Nanofusion Experiment
• Theoretical study of the d(d,p)3H and d(d,n)3He processes at low energies
• Fusion hindrance effects in laser-induced non-neutral plasmas
• Thermal and chaotic distributions of plasma in laser driven Coulomb explosions of deuterium clusters
• Simulating fusion reactions from Coulomb explosions within a transport approach
• Demonstration of Laser-produced Neutron Diagnostic by Radiative Capture Gamma-rays