Anisotropic distributions of deuterium–deuterium nuclear fusion products in a compact tokamak

Abstract

Abstract The paper is devoted to calculations of anisotropic spectra of nuclear fusion products in a compact tokamak. The knowledge of these spectra is essential for estimations of the first wall load by neutron radiation and other fast particle fluxes from the plasma, computations of the plasma heating profiles, and correct analysis of experimental data, obtained on the present-day and prospective tokamaks and other controlled fusion devices. Anisotropic analytical S- and L-formulae found earlier for nuclear fusion product distributions are computationally demanding. In this paper improved anisotropic S- and L-algorithms are introduced. The new simplified formulae retain the generality and reduce the calculation time without changing the results. Their application for the calculation of energetic and angular distributions of products of both neutron and proton branches of the deuterium–deuterium nuclear fusion reaction in the neutral beam heated plasma of the Globus-M2 spherical tokamak is described. Notwithstanding the low neutral beam energy, the obtained fusion product spectra are strongly anisotropic and may be observed experimentally.