Ridgers C P, Arran C, Bissell J J, Kingham R J
York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York, North Yorkshire YO10 5DD, UK.
Department of Electronic Engineering, University of York, Heslington, York, North Yorkshire YO10 5DD, UK.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2021 Jan 25;379(2189):20200017. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2020.0017. Epub 2020 Dec 7.
Magnetic fields can be generated in plasmas by the Biermann battery when the electric field produced by the electron pressure gradient has a curl. The commonly employed magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of the Biermann battery breaks down when the electron distribution function is distorted away from Maxwellian. Using both MHD and kinetic simulations of a laser-plasma interaction relevant to inertial confinement fusion we have shown that this distortion can reduce the Biermann-producing electric field by around 50%. More importantly, the use of a flux limiter in an MHD treatment to deal with the effect of the non-Maxwellian electron distribution on electron thermal transport leads to a completely unphysical prediction of the Biermann-producing electric field and so results in erroneous predictions for the generated magnetic field. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'Prospects for high gain inertial fusion energy (part 2)'.
当由电子压力梯度产生的电场具有旋度时，等离子体中可通过比尔曼电池产生磁场。当电子分布函数偏离麦克斯韦分布时，常用的比尔曼电池磁流体动力学（MHD）模型就会失效。通过与惯性约束聚变相关的激光 - 等离子体相互作用的MHD和动力学模拟，我们表明这种畸变可使产生比尔曼电场降低约50%。更重要的是，在MHD处理中使用通量限制器来处理非麦克斯韦电子分布对电子热输运的影响，会导致对比尔曼产生电场的完全非物理预测，从而对产生的磁场做出错误预测。本文是讨论会议议题“高增益惯性聚变能源的前景（第2部分）”的一部分。
