Illustration of fusion enhancement in a laser field. (IMAGE)
Caption
Without laser fields, the bare collision energy is assumed to be 5 keV, corresponding to a fusion cross section of 0.538×10-3 barn (dashed horizontal line). In the presence of a laser field, the collision energy becomes a distribution (an example is shown as the red curve on the left axis), with energies higher and lower than 5 keV. Higher energies lead to higher fusion yields, whereas lower energies lead to lower fusion yields. However, the fusion yields gained with higher energies are greater than the fusion yields lost with lower energies because the cross section function is an exponential function, concaving upward (black solid curve, right axis).
Credit
Jin-Tao Qi
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License
CC BY-NC