Symmetry issues in Directly Irradiated Targets

Abstract

In direct drive Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), the typical laser beam to laser beam angle is around 30. This fact makes the study of the irradiation symmetry a genuine 3D problem. In this paper we use the three dimensional version of the MULTI hydrocode to assess the symmetry of such ICF implosions. More specifically, we study a shock-ignition proposal for the Laser-Mégajoule facility (LMJ) in which two of the equatorial beam cones are used to implode and precompress a spherical capsule (the "reference" capsule of HiPER project) made of 0.59 mg of pure Deuterium-Tritium mixture. The symmetry of this scheme is analysed and optimized to get a design inside the operating limits of LMJ. The studied configuration has been found essentially axial-symmetric, so that the use of 2D hydrocodes would be appropriate for this specific situation. © Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013.