Fusion reactions produce incredibly energetic particles: neutrons, ions, and photons (or gammas). In magnetic confinement fusion, the charged fast ions are trapped by the magnetic field and deposit their energy in the background plasma from which they were born. Neutral neutrons and gammas, on the other hand, fly out of the device and can be detected; in fact, the ultimate goal is for their energy to be captured to produce electricity one day.
We can measure these energetic particles in time, space, and energy to diagnose the fusion performance of the plasma. In SPARC, these detectors will directly measure fusion power and show energy breakeven for the first time in magnetic fusion! We will also investigate novel physics in “burning plasmas,” with dominant self-heating from the confined ions, for the first time ever!
– We simulate how neutrons and gammas interact with surrounding materials and detectors with Monte Carlo codes like OpenMC
– We model how confined fast ions can drive magnetohydrodynamic instabilities and their resulting interactions
– We prototype novel nuclear detectors and test them experimentally with neutron, ion, and gamma sources
Collaboration with Commonwealth Fusion Systems; CNR and University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
This work supported in part by Commonwealth Fusion Systems.
