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Dynamically assisted nuclear fusion in the strong-field regime

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Ab initio calculations Dynamical Tunneling Floquet systems Free-electron lasers High intensity laser-plasma interactions High-energy-density plasmas IFE Related IFE-STAR Laboratory plasma Laser applications Multiphoton or tunneling ionization and excitation Nuclear fusion Nuclear reaction rates Numerical techniques Plasma fusion Ponderomotive effects RISE Publications Schroedinger equation Tunneling and traversal time
Martin Louis Lindsey, John Jasper Bekx, Karl-Georg Schlesinger, Siegfried Heinz Glenzer

Abstract:

We consider quantum tunneling between fusing nuclei in the presence of a harmonically time-varying field. The tunneling rate is calculated using Floquet/Volkov (FV) and Kramers-Henneberger (KH) approaches, which are both compared to a first-principles numerical solution of the Crank-Nicolson (CN) type. Numerical validation of the FV approach justifies its use in analytical estimates of laser-enhanced reaction rates, while the KH approach does not reproduce the predictions of the others. For a deuterium-tritium plasma at a temperature of 1 keV, it is found that significant enhancement of fusion reactivity requires field strengths on the order of 1015 – 1016 V/m and photon energies below 1 keV, which is within reach of next-generation x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs).

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