Rose S J, Hatfield P W, Scott R H H
Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, UK.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2020 Nov 13;378(2184):20200014. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2020.0014. Epub 2020 Oct 12.
Considerable progress towards the achievement of thermonuclear burn using inertial confinement fusion has been achieved at the National Ignition Facility in the USA in the last few years. Other drivers, such as the Z-machine at Sandia, are also making progress towards this goal. A burning thermonuclear plasma would provide a unique and extreme plasma environment; in this paper we discuss (a) different theoretical challenges involved in modelling burning plasmas not currently considered, (b) the use of novel machine learning-based methods that might help large facilities reach ignition, and (c) the connections that a burning plasma might have to fundamental physics, including quantum electrodynamics studies, and the replication and exploration of conditions that last occurred in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Prospects for high gain inertial fusion energy (part 1)'.
过去几年间，美国国家点火装置在利用惯性约束聚变实现热核燃烧方面取得了重大进展。其他驱动装置，如桑迪亚国家实验室的Z机器，也在朝着这一目标迈进。燃烧的热核等离子体将提供一个独特且极端的等离子体环境；在本文中，我们将讨论：（a）目前未被考虑的燃烧等离子体建模中涉及的不同理论挑战；（b）使用基于机器学习的新方法，这些方法可能有助于大型设施实现点火；（c）燃烧等离子体与基础物理学之间的联系，包括量子电动力学研究，以及对大爆炸后最初几分钟内出现的条件的复制和探索。本文是一次讨论会特刊“高增益惯性聚变能源的前景（第一部分）”的一部分。
