Symmetry issues in Directly Irradiated Targets

Abstract

In direct drive Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF), the typical laser beam to laser beam angle is around 30°. This fact makes the study of the irradiation symmetry a genuine 3D problem. In this paper we use the three dimensional version of the MULTI hydrocode to assess the symmetry of such ICF implosions. More specifically, we study a shock-ignition proposal for the Laser-Mégajoule facility (LMJ) in which two of the equatorial beam cones are used to implode and precompress a spherical capsule (the “reference” capsule of HiPER project) made of 0.59 mg of pure Deuterium-Tritium mixture. The symmetry of this scheme is analysed and optimized to get a design inside the operating limits of LMJ. The studied configuration has been found essentially axial-symmetric, so that the use of 2D hydrocodes would be appropriate for this specific situation.