[Table of Contents]

Plasma and Fusion Research

Volume 9, 3404090 (2014)

Regular Articles


Implosion Simulation by Hydro Code Coupled with Laser Absorption using New Raytrace Algorithm
Takumi YANAGAWA, Hitoshi SAKAGAMI1), Atsushi SUNAHARA2) and Hideo NAGATOMO3)
Nagoya University, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan
1)
National Institute for Fusion Science, Oroshi-cho, Toki 509-5292, Japan
2)
Institute for Laser Technology, Yamadaoka, Suita 565-0871, Japan
3)
Institute of Laser Engineering, Osaka University, Yamadaoka, Suita 565-0871, Japan
(Received 10 December 2013 / Accepted 3 May 2014 / Published 4 July 2014)

Abstract

The calculation of the laser absorption is very important for implosion simulations to capture precisely its dynamics. In many implosion simulations, the laser absorption is computed by the use of ray tracing. However, the conventional ray tracing method has the problem that it generates a non-physical absorption distribution because it represents a laser beam by a finite number of rays. Such a non-physical distribution on the target surface could be numerical perturbations that grow drastically due to Rayleigh-Taylor instability. An enormous number of rays are required to avoid such a non-physical distribution. This results in high computational costs. Thus, we have developed a new method of ray tracing that essentially generates no non-physical absorption distribution. In the new algorithm, rays are inversely traced from grid points unlike the conventional method. This paper presents the new algorithm and a preliminary implosion simulation where the pressure perturbation due to the non-uniformity of the irradiation is computed by the use of this new ray tracing.


Keywords

inertial confinement fusion, implosion simulation, laser plasma interaction, ray tracing, hydrodynamics

DOI: 10.1585/pfr.9.3404090


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This paper may be cited as follows:

Takumi YANAGAWA, Hitoshi SAKAGAMI, Atsushi SUNAHARA and Hideo NAGATOMO, Plasma Fusion Res. 9, 3404090 (2014).