Laser-plasma interactions in the context of inertial fusion research Available to Purchase

The ignition scale facilities for the inertial confinement fusion now under construction in France and in the United States are based on a low adiabat compression of a spherically symmetric target and a central point ignition. An isochoric heating of a compressed core, known as the fast ignition, offers a possibility to reduce the ignition energy several times and significantly increase the gain. Fast ignition projects for the inertial fusion energy based on a PW-power driver are under discussion now in Europe, United States and Japan. We present the main features of the European project HiPER, aiming at the demonstration of the laser driven fusion. The key issues for the laser and target specifications are addressed in terms of the basic theory, numerical simulations and experiments on currently available large-scale laser facilities.