Magnetic flux and heat losses by diffusive, advective, and Nernst effects in MagLIF-like plasma

Abstract

The MagLIF approach to inertial confinement fusion involves subsonic/isobaric compression and heating of a DT plasma with frozen-in magnetic flux by a heavy cylindrical liner. The losses of heat and magnetic flux from the plasma to the liner are thereby determined by plasma advection and gradient-driven transport processes, such as thermal conductivity, magnetic field diffusion and thermomagnetic effects. Theoretical analysis based on obtaining exact self-similar solutions of the classical collisional Braginskii's plasma transport equations in one dimension demonstrates that the heat loss from the hot plasma to the cold liner is dominated by the transverse heat conduction and advection, and the corresponding loss of magnetic flux is dominated by advection and the Nernst effect. For a large electron Hall parameter ωeτe effective diffusion coefficients determining the losses of heat and magnetic flux are both shown to decrease with ωeτe as does the Bohm diffusion coefficient, which is commonly associated with low collisionality and two-dimensional transport. This family of exact solutions can be used for verification of codes that model the MagLIF plasma dynamics.