Introduction

The classic work by Lawson [J. D. Lawson, Proc. Phys. Soc. London Sect. B 70, 6 (1957)] has been the standard reference about "ignition" (the production of power at steady state without any auxiliary power input) in magnetic confinement experiments for several decades. Our research work aims at improving the model in Lawson's work by:

1. Including multi-fluid physics, i.e. distinguishing between ions, electrons and α particles;
2. Considering one-dimensional profiles for ion and electron temperatures and densities.

Mathematica notebook for the 0D TF Lawson criterion

Mathematica notebook for 0D heating power calculations, step 1

Mathematica notebook for 0D heating power calculations, step 2

Mathematica notebook for 1D TF evolution

Mathematica notebook for the 1D TF Lawson criterion

A useful tool for calculating Lawson products for different profiles and energy confinement times (only for download for now):

Lawson product calculator

A conference presentation (APS-DPP 2016) describing the method and results of this work is included below.

APS-DPP 2016 presentation

The first paper on this work has been published in Physics of Plasmas and is attached below.

TF-Lawson first paper [Physics of Plasmas 24, 082504 (2017)]

Contact: Luca Guazzotto, Auburn University

last modified July 7 2018