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Utilizing the deuterium-tritium fusion resonance to diagnose thermal runaway in igniting plasmas

Robert H. Dwyer1,2,3,*, K. D. Meaney1, B. M. Haines1, B. J. Albright1, H. Geppert-Kleinrath1, J. P. Sauppe1, W. Daughton1, N. M. Hoffman1, C. Forrest3 et al.

S. P. Regan3 and Y. Kim1

  • *Contact author: rdwyer@lanl.gov
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Phys. Rev. E 113, 035214 – Published 27 March, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/pl89-ftjd

Abstract

For high-efficiency inertial confinement fusion implosions, it is predicted that a burning hot spot will successfully encompass all surrounding fuel and then transition into a thermal runaway where the internal energy increase from fusion occurs on a timescale faster than the expansion of the fuel is able to quench the fusion chain reaction after ignition occurs. Observation of this dynamic phase transition would indicate distinct burn properties and indicate an implosion's robustness. A technique for diagnosing the presence of thermal runaway from measurements of nuclear reaction history is presented. The technique is based on taking the logarithmic derivative of the nuclear reaction history, called the α curve, and allowing a mathematical decoupling of the mass, volume, and thermal reactivity in the fusion reaction rate equation. During thermal runaway, where the thermal temperature dominates the burn dynamics, a maximum in the α curve is found where there is a maximum in the first derivative of the thermal fusion reactivity, an effect to the deuterium-tritium (DT) fusion cross-section resonance. This provides a distinct signature related to the fundamental nature of the DT fusion nuclear resonance and signifies the transition into the fusion thermal instability. Impacts of charged particle transport on the effect are also assessed and the analytical formulas are compared and found to be in agreement with radiation hydrodynamic codes.

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Phys. Rev. E 113, 035214– Published 27 March, 2026
  • Received 20 May 2025
  • Accepted 27 February 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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