Hello everybody, new to the FF forum myself. I am extremely excited by the work the FF team are doing and follow them with a keen interest.
However, I have a question that has been puzzling me for some time, concerning capturing energy from the ion beam, particularly the ions created by the fusion itself. I can understand that when the magnetic field collapses the ‘original’ ions in the plasma will move along the axis of the device (with the electrons moving in the opposite direction), but I don’t understand why the He ions resulting from the fusion reaction will do the same. My ‘gut feeling’ is that the energy of the fusion will be carried away by the 3 He nuclei in different directions (just like the DPF animation), which is not only intuitive but would also conserve momentum. If so, how then could the kinetic energy of the He nuclei be captured along one axis? Does the collapsing field impart a change of momentum to the nuclei so that they move off in one direction? If so, shouldn’t there be an equal and opposite movement of something (electrons or the plasma residue) in the opposite direction?
