Photon and Neutron Production as In Situ Diagnostics of Proton-Boron Fusion

Short-pulse, ultrahigh-intensity lasers have opened new regimes for studying fusion plasmas and creating novel ultrashort ion beams and neutron sources. Diagnosing the plasma in these experiments is important for optimizing the fusion yield but di4cult due to the picosecond time scales, 10 s of micron-cubed volumes, and high densities. We propose to use the yields of photons and neutrons produced by parallel reactions involving the same reactants to diagnose the plasma conditions and predict the yields of speci6c reactions of interest. In this work, we focus on verifying the yield of the high-interest aneutronic proton-boron fusion reaction B-11( p, 20) 4He, which is di4cult to measure directly due to the short stopping range of the produced 0 s in most materials. We identify promising photon-producing reactions for this purpose and compute the ratios of the photon yield to the 0 yield as a function of plasma parameters. In beam-fusion experiments, the C-11 yield is an easily-measurable observable to verify the 0 yield. In light of our results, improving and extending measurements of the cross-sections for these parallel reactions are important steps to gain greater control over these laser-driven fusion plasmas.

Automated summary

Short-pulse, ultrahigh-intensity lasers have enabled the exploration of fusion plasmas and the creation of ultrashort ion beams and neutron sources. Diagnosing these plasmas is challenging due to the short time scales, small volumes, and high densities involved. This study proposes the use of photon and neutron yields from parallel reactions to diagnose plasma conditions and predict specific reaction yields.