First-principles studies on the equation of state, thermal conductivity, and opacity of deuterium-tritium (DT) and polystyrene (CH) for inertial confinement fusion applications. (May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hu, S X; Collins, L A; Goncharov, V N; Kress, J D; Boehly, T R; Epstein, R; McCrory, R L; Skupsky, S
• Is Part Of: Journal of physics. Volume 717(2016)
• Publication Date: 2016-05
• Subjects: Physics -- Congresses; 530.5
• DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/717/1/012064
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1742-6588

Abstract

Abstract: Using first-principles (FP) methods, we have performed ab initio compute for the equation of state (EOS), thermal conductivity, and opacity of deuterium-tritium (DT) in a wide range of densities and temperatures for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) applications. These systematic investigations have recently been expanded to accurately compute the plasma properties of CH ablators under extreme conditions. In particular, the first-principles EOS and thermal-conductivity tables of CH are self-consistently built from such FP calculations, which are benchmarked by experimental measurements. When compared with the traditional models used for these plasma properties in hydrocodes, significant differences have been identified in the warm dense plasma regime. When these FP-calculated properties of DT and CH were used in our hydrodynamic simulations of ICF implosions, we found that the target performance in terms of neutron yield and energy gain can vary by a factor of 2 to 3, relative to traditional model simulations.