Session RP1 - Poster Session VIII.
POSTER session, Thursday afternoon, October 30
Fran Hill Southeast Exhibit Hall, ACC
Ignitor^1 has been the first experiment proposed and designed to reach ignition conditions, and remains unique in preserving this goal. At ignition where plasma heating due to the fusion reaction products compensates for all forms of energy loss, the thermonuclear instability sets in and an appropriate set of two nonlinear equations that include the tendency of the plasma temperature to explode^2 and the quenching due to pressure gradient driven modes, is introduced to describe the resulting (oscillatory) burning phase. Quasi-stationary subignited regimes are identified using the JETTO transport code by controlling the isotopic composition of the plasma and applying appropriate pulses of ICRH heating to the plasma column. When the DT mixture is optimal (50-50), the ICRH power needed to shorten significantly the approach to ignition can be as low as 3MW if applied at the time when the ideal ignition condition is reached.
^1B. Coppi et al., Nucl. Fusion 41, 1253 (2001) ^2A.C. Coppi and B. Coppi, Phys. Plasmas 6, 1470 (1999)