Integrated diagnostic analysis of inertial confinement fusion capsule performance

A conceptual model is developed for typical inertial confinement fusion implosion conditions that integrates available diagnostic information to determine the stagnation properties of the interior fill and surrounding shell. Assuming pressure equilibrium at peak compression and invoking radiative and equation-of-state relations, the pressure, density, and electron temperature are obtained by optimized fitting of the experimental output to smooth, global functional forms. Typical observational data that may be used includes x-ray self-emission, directional neutron time-of-flight signals, neutron yield, high-resolution x-ray spectra, and radiographic images. This approach has been validated by comparison with radiation-hydrodynamic simulations, producing semi-quantitative agreement. Model results implicate poor kinetic energy coupling to the hot core as the primary cause of the observed low thermonuclear burn yields. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.