Questions tagged [fusion]
The fusion tag is used for questions about nuclear fusion, both the basic process at a physical level and it's use as a potential energy source.
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What is the force at play in the emission of neutron out of Helium-5
On nuclear fusion, Wikipedia reads (about Tritium-Deuterium fusion):
The (intermediate) result of the fusion is an unstable 5He nucleus, which immediately ejects a neutron with 14.1 MeV. The recoil ...
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1answer
63 views
What is the largest obstacle in practical helium-3 fusion?
I've been busy looking into clean, sustainable energy solutions (for a project)
I ran into He-He fusion of the isotope He-3, and most of it looks more beneficial than the traditional D-T fusion due ...
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1answer
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Heavy elements creation [duplicate]
Would elements heavier than iron not be extremely rare if only created by supernovae? I believe all elements above hydrogen are created in the star's corona. Hydrogen fusion is not possible in star's ...
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1answer
114 views
Spherical Electromagnet Formed By Six Coils For Plasma Containment and Nuclear Fusion [closed]
Several years ago I have proposed an open source spherical magnetic vessel to contain plasma for nuclear fusion which can be seen by following this link.
A photo of it is seen below.
A question here ...
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1answer
48 views
How does binding energy work?
I do not have a very advanced understanding of binding energy and atomic mass but in my classes, I have learned that the atomic mass is equal to the sum of the number of protons and the number of ...
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1answer
51 views
Hydrogen bomb without fission stage
The majority of existing nuclear warheads are Thermonuclear devices implementing the Teller--Ulam design. It includes a first stage of "traditional" nuclear fission explosive (Uranium and/or Plutonium)...
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1answer
26 views
Can another element “burn” at the same rate as hydrogen does in our sun?
From what I understand our sun doesn't actually "burn", instead a nuclear reaction is taking place, which is the cause of heat, light and a electromagnetic radiation. I believe this is called Hydrogen ...
3
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2answers
43 views
Why this arrangement of thingys in this light-induced fusion reactor?
Here is a photo from inside a light-induced fusion reactor at the National Ignition Facility, California.
Image source: Wikipedia
I'm not sure what those thingys all around it are but I assume they ...
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1answer
40 views
Why is this reaction considered a nuclear fusion when the daughter isotope has a nucleus with the same mass?
I understand that in nuclear fusion, the colliding particle unites with the parent and fuses into a single nucleus with a higher mass. Sometimes other small particles
(n, p) are given off.
However, ...
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31 views
Fusion in Sun's core [duplicate]
I was reading nuclear physics in which it was mentioned that the coulomb barrier for proton is 400keV corresponding to a temperature of 3 billion Kelvin.I want to know then how does nuclear fusion ...
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2answers
88 views
How does the Sun provide enough energy to fuse protons?
Given that the sun’s temperature is lower than the temperature needed to fuse two protons. How does the sun provide enough energy for this fusion to happen?
Has it do something with tunneling and $E =...
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1answer
58 views
Is first light fusion solution possible to work?
This company is running a project with extremely high pressure and low temperature
https://firstlightfusion.com/technology/#our-approach
Their idea is roughly by using a railgun, accelerate a ...
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2answers
66 views
Does fusion only occur with ions?
In nuclear fusion, the particles require enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier. The Coulomb barrier is caused by the Coulomb force, which is created by the protons repelling each other because ...
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26 views
Calculation of number of nuclear fusion reaction per cubic meter or kilo
In wikipedia article about Nuclear fusion there is a list of nuclear fusion reaction here.
Is there a equation how to calculate number of nuclear fusion reaction per second per cubic meter or per kg ...
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1answer
20 views
How would I go about calculating the energy input needed for a cyclotron reactor?
I'm trying to do some math regarding cyclotron reactors. I've figured out how to calculate the radius of a particle's motion in the cyclotron, a rough way to calculate energy output, but I have looked ...
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1answer
28 views
Is a chain fusion reaction of deuterium oxide (heavy water).possible?
I think it is the case that at very high temperatures that two deuterium atoms can be made to fuse to produce helium and a release of energy. I think under appropriate physical conditions this can ...
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2answers
90 views
How are thermonuclear weapons possible?
Given the fact that thermonuclear devices are a mix of fission through enriched uranium whose energy initiates the fusion in surrounding deuterium. Question is (how come) fission raises temperature so ...
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3answers
69 views
Energy from fusion beyond iron peak
In the diagram of nuclear binding energy per nucleon Eb/A (vertical axis) and mass number A (horizontal axis), Fe-56 has one of the highest values. Many authors state that nuclear fusion can only ...
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3answers
166 views
Is gravity a factor for sustaining fusion?
Does gravity affect a Fusion reactors ability to sustain a reaction? If so has there been any experiments done or planed for in space?
Holding / maintaining shape might be a lot easier with less ...
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1answer
34 views
Any way to definitively determine the products of deuterium-deuterium fusion?
I was doing some reading and came across these two reactions:
$D + D \rightarrow \:^3He + n + 3.27 MeV$
and:
$D + D \rightarrow \:^3H + H + 4.03 MeV$
(from here: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu....
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1answer
46 views
How is the energy output released in a proton-proton fusion reaction?
$$\rm p + p \to {}^2H + e^+ + v_e$$
The net energy output for this reaction, not including the electron-positron annihilation that likely would occur, is 0.423 MeV - according to my math and sources ...
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0answers
27 views
Is there a mathematical model for predicting when gamma rays are produced in radioactive decay?
My understanding of gamma ray emission from radioactivity is that the daughter particle is in an excited state, which then produces a gamma ray as the electron drops energy levels. In the case of ...
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2answers
68 views
Could you use the detonation of a Hydrogen bomb or atomic bomb to start a nuclear fusion reactor [closed]
Would this lead to a reactor that produced more energy than you put in?
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3answers
129 views
Is high temperature **required** for nuclear fusion?
Tl;dr: Can fusion be achieved only by speeding up particles to high enough speeds to smash into each other?
I know that it is necessary for protons, or any oppositely-charged particles for that ...
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1answer
79 views
How does the $p+p + e^-\rightarrow D + \gamma\gamma+ \nu$ reaction proceed in the sun?
In this video on nuclear fusion the explanation of the reaction $p+p\rightarrow D + \nu + \gamma\gamma$ is that the two protons collide, form a weakly bound state, and then sometimes decay into the ...
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28 views
How To Simulate Muon Induced Nuclear Fusion?
I am familiar with euler-lagrange equations which can be used to simulate a mechanical system, something like an inverted pendulum on a cart. How can I simulate a volume of deuterium and tritium with ...
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1answer
44 views
Is relativistic channeled electron catalyzed fusion possible?
A few words first about muon catalyzed fusion.
You can see this question sigoldberg1 answer, and this link.
"The muon may bump the electron from one of the hydrogen isotopes. The muon, 207 ...
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1answer
33 views
NAS report on fast ignition
I'm looking for a paper, or much more likely a small part of a large report, by the National Academy of Sciences from around 2013 on the topic of fusion. The report mentions the fast ignition approach ...
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1answer
66 views
Has proton-proton fusion ever been seriously considered for an artificial fusion reactor?
All contemporary efforts to perform nuclear fusion as a source of power have focused on reactions between isotopes (often deuterium, tritium, or He3) and/or light elements (often boron or lithium ...
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1answer
75 views
Ultra Cold Neutrons in a Bottle Question
If you take a large amount of ultracold neutrons and confine them in a bottle would they then decay into protons and then fuse because they are so tightly condensed that the protons, once neutrons, ...
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2answers
80 views
How do we recover fusion energy from gamma photons
Most fusion reactions create energy in form of hard gamma radiations. A single gamma photon carries energy orders of magnitude higher than any ionization level. Even if we develop some hardcore ...
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1answer
25 views
Tuning Drifts in Tokamaks
If we managed to make over 50 % of the drifting of the guiding centers of the gyrating particles inside a tokamak to occur into the inwards direction, away from the tokamak walls, would that allow us ...
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42 views
Intermediate product of CNO cycle
CNO cycle of stellar nucleosynthesis involves several steps in which different isotopes of Carbon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen are transmuted into each other when hit by a ...
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1answer
26 views
Why doesn't a deuterium-deuterium reaction usually yield Helium-4?
I assume the above reaction is less energetically favorable than the creation of He-3 (plus a neutron) or tritium plus a proton? But why/how?
Or are the hard, hot, fast collisions too much for it to ...
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1answer
92 views
Why does fusion above nickel 56 require energy?
I've always struggled with the concept of fission and fusion. I mean I can show a mass deficit with math easily enough but I have always struggled understanding the fundamental concept of why things ...
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6answers
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Is fission/fusion to iron the most efficient way to convert mass to energy?
Is fission/fusion of any element to iron-56 (or nickel-62?) the best way to convert mass to energy, that doesn't involve black holes?
In other words, will we be always limited to convert only about 1%...
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1answer
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Is there a “pinch effect” in a Tokamak?
Is there a "pinch effect" in a Tokamak, like in a linear Z-pinch or in a circular pinch (the ZETA machine from the late 50's)? Tokamaks run in a pulsed mode and a powerful circular current is induced ...
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54 views
How can corium eating its way into water tanks cause a megaton scale explosion? [duplicate]
The 2019 miniseries "Chernobyl" appears to state that the "lava like" substance of melted radioactive matter from the core, the so-called "corium", could eat its way down into the water reservoirs ...
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2answers
105 views
How can Sun burn in space?
If there is no oxygen in space how can sun burn in space. (even though I know fire is caused by nuclear reaction inside sun)
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What if a fusion reactor had moving parts?
I have never dug into fusion physics, but from what I gather one of the main problems is confining the fusion in a small region of space for long enough to get enough helium fused to counterbalance ...
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3answers
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Whats the next step after commercial fusion reactors? [closed]
I'm trying to write some science fiction where they've had nuclear fusion working for quite sometime, interplanetary travel is no problem, and they're debating making the next step to a radical new, ...
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Released energy during fusion reaction
Click to view the video at required time
According to the video in the link above
the binding energy for deuterium is about 2 MeV and the binding energy for tritium is about 8 MeV so the total for ...
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0answers
64 views
Why is the D+P fusion reaction not considered for large-scale power production?
I know that D+D (fusion of deuterium + deuterium nuclei) as well as D+T (fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei) are the reactions most commonly considered for large-scale power production. Why not D+...
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3answers
80 views
Binding energy, fission and fusion
My high school physics book doesn't elaborate the idea of binding energy and how it's related to fission and fusion adequately in a way that made me have wrong thoughts about these ideas.
What i ...
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2answers
114 views
Explain to me why the following reaction can happen in big stars but not on earth
$$
\rm
{}^{12}C +{}^{12}C\rightarrow {}^{20}Ne + {}^4He
$$
why doesn't this reaction occur on earth? but occurs in big stars?
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1answer
21 views
How can you determine how much neutron shielding is necessary for a given neutron source?
Trying to make a fusor at home and I was wondering if there is an industry standard or perhaps an equation to determine how and what type of neutron shielding is necessary to protect against the high ...
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0answers
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CNO-cycle in Population III stars [duplicate]
It has been stated several times here and probably elsewhere that the first population III stars were unable to undergo H-to-He fusion via the CNO cycle as there was virtually no carbon-12 at the ...
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60 views
What is the maximum energy that can be released by thermonuclear device?
Forgive me by posing this somewhat scary question, but it's just out of curiosity I'm asking it.
In this video we're witnessing the beautiful and at the same time horrific blast of the tsar bomba, ...
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What is Incoming wave boundary condition (IWBC) in context of nuclear fusion reaction?
For calculation of fusion cross section at sub barrier energies, instead of regular boundary condition we impose Incoming wave boundary condition (IWBC). How does this different from normal boundary ...
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47 views
Sensitivity of latent heat of fusion of ice on temperature and pressure
The enthalpy of fusion is the heat necessary to convert 1 kg of ice to liquid water. According to Wikipedia, this heat equals 333,55 kJ/kg.
Does this heat change with the temperature or pressure and ...
