Reply To: Newbie pB11 Fuel Questions

[jamesr]

There seems to be a bit of confusion between the energy/direction/velocity of the He ions and the formation of the beam. They are more or less completely unrelated. I guess the important thing to consider is that you still get a beam of ions out of a collapsing DPF pinch (hypothesized to be a self contained plasmoid structure) even if you don’t get any fusion.

A collapsing DPF pinch will always create the electric field accelerating ions and electrons into a opposing beams. As Zapkitty says the electron beam losses a lot of its energy as the electrons try and plough through the plasma, but the heavier ions have enough inertia to carry on out through the surrounding plasma.

rickPS: Yes the He ions will be emitted in random orientation away from each other – although not all three out from a point in a triangle, instead the excited C12 spits out one He4, then the leftover Be8 almost immidiately splits into the other two He4, conserving momentum in each case. These He ions although traveling very fast don’t get very far as they are still bound to spiral around the magnetic field lines.

If B = 1GG = 10000 Tesla, and the 2.9MeV He4’s have a velocity of ~1.2e7m/s then in the ‘worst’ case when the He ion is emmitied perpendicular to the B-field the radius of curvature is: 0.02mm

So the He ions will just spiral around in a small volume the field having collisions with the other electrons & ions in the dense plasma of the pinch, heating it up. Such that each He will lose all its excess energy and become thermal within a few picoseconds, compared to the 10’s of nanosecond life of the pinch