Reply To: No-go for cheap fusion?

[MTd2]

Seriously now, the only two parameters to play with are pressure and the intensity of the axial field. Going down didn’t work and it seems there is not much room to go up. I am not sure about the reasons, given that 35KV, with the 10 banks that are actually working now, would still allow pinch at significantly higher pressures. So, the only thing that remains is playing with is the axial field.

I think the reason it won’t work with the axial field being constant it is that the path of the filaments are not really radially straight, but slightly randomly bended. So, a constant field will not converge perfectly the filaments to the axis, so they will meat at the axis with slightly different angular momentum. Some of them will bounce a little, others will arrive and converge fast. In the end, the density of the plasmoid will be small.

So, my idea is to let the filaments converge as much as possible and then give a large magnetic pulse. The filaments will be closer to the target, so they will miss the each other less, and will have the required angular momentum.