Reply To: No-go for cheap fusion?

[jamesr]

Brian H wrote:
When I first started reading, I was looking for the appearance of alpha particles, but no He ions showed up. Didn’t get that (I assume) the alpha wave referred to is the protons plus some deuterium ions(?). Or is it a particular frequency range?

The opening sentence says

Optimal exploitation of the free energy of fusion products, for example, the alpha particles born at 3.5 MeV

Nowhere is the phrase “alpha wave” used. The plasma wave is a collective phenomena of the ions, electrons, and the electric & magnetic fields.

The model, as far as I understand, is based on the fusion born alphas having inital collision(s) with some bulk ions transferring their energy to them. Creating a population of high velocity ions. For simplicity this is modelled as bump-on-tail distribution of protons/deuterons, with the bump at 3MeV directed at an angle to the magnetic field. The system is then evolved to see how the energy is redistributed. They then found

Collective instability gives
rise to electromagnetic field activity in the lower hybrid
(LH) frequency range. The spontaneously excited obliquely
propagating waves undergo Landau damping on resonant
electrons, drawing out an asymmetric tail in the distribution
of electron parallel velocities,which carries a current