New mechanism of reactivity enhancement for advanced fuel fusion

Abstract

If electron cyclotron wave is adopted for heating of D-３Ｈe advanced fuel fusion plasma, it makes the latter operate at elevated electron temperature. Under these circumstances, some new physical processes, such as nuclear-nuclear elastic scattering, nuclear plus Coulomb interference scattering, secondary reaction propagation between the fusion products and bulk Maxwellian ions, become relatively more pronounced. However the Coulomb-interactions between fusion produced energetic ions and electrons turn to be weakening, a fraction of bulk Maxwellian fuel ions will be shifted to super-hot tail ions in their distribution functions, hence D-３Ｈe fusion reactivity may be enhanced. The energy transfer of these new mechanisms is highlighted in this paper.