[nferguso]

…waiting for update…

[nferguso]

Hi. Yes, that’s what is still confusing me. Maybe it’s the word “plasmoid”. I take that word to refer to the stuff that is being pinched, producing fusion of H and B ions. It’s what’s there before fusion. The helium ions are a product of the fusion. That’s two different things. The fusion doesn’t produce electrons; at least Wikipedia doesn’t mention them. So if someone refers to even just a virtual beam of electrons, if they’re implying high-energy (as in MeV) electrons, I don’t see where they exist. The only highly energetic matter in a beam would be the He nuclei.

If we’re talking about the material remnants of the plasmoid (and if that word means what I think it means), and if the story is that the nuclear and electron particles also end up in a beam coming out of the reaction area, ok, but they would be relatively low energy (kV) and unimportant. I might like to know just out of curiosity if that part of the beam is formed before, during, or after fusion occurs.

Corollarily, would there not also be two distinct bursts of (x-ray/gamma-ray/heat) radiation to consider – a large amount from the fusion, and a smaller amount during the production, compression, and collapse of the plasmoid? Naturally, all the radiation would be omnidirectional, though perhaps not uniform.

Cheers,
Neil

[nferguso]

Thanks, Ivy Matt. It’s still not making sense to me. It is the product of the fusion, the high energy helium nuclei (alpha particles), that carries the output energy of the system, is it not? Isn’t that what the focused beam will consist of? When talking about the plasmoids, aren’t we talking about different stuff – plasma created from the current from the capacitors that compresses ambient fuel to produce the fusion?

Wouldn’t it be the case that if the components of the fusion-triggering plasma do end up in the beams, they are there only incidentally? Isn’t the great majority of the energy in the beam specifically the alpha particles?

Cheers,
Neil Ferguson

[nferguso]

Thank you very much for the insight.

[nferguso]

I have been following FFS website activities for a few months with interest. I hope your society and the LPPX continue to prosper. Perhaps someone could help me with answers to a couple of non-scientist questions I can’t find the precise answer for.

I have gotten the impression that when a fusion of boron and hydrogen occurs in a FF device, it is the alpha particles produced by the fusion that will leave the reaction area, and it will leave in a beam axial to the electrodes rather than evenly in entirely random directions. Is this true? That would be the implication if “particle decelerator” mechanisms are to be used to capture the electric energy directly from the particle momentum. Oh, and if true, is it a single direction axially, or bidirectionally out both ends of the reaction area? The thread suggests it’s unidirectionally but I want to be sure.

Second, If the particles emerge from the reaction area in a beam rather than omnidirectionally, is it because the electromagnetic forces of the plasma focus them to do so, or is it because the boron and hydrogen particles have been guided to fusion so that the alpha particles are thrown off in a uniform linear direction? The latter doesn’t seem possible to me, but I’m no physicist.

The gist of the thread has me wondering. My understanding is that the “positive” beam is composed of high energy helium ions formed and accelerated by the fusion reaction. There is no corresponding beam of “negative” electrons with equivalent energy created by the fusion, is there? The reaction is nuclear, not electrical. Is my layman’s understanding at all close? Or have I missed the point entirely?

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