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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
In transition: Commercializing fusion power
Commercial fusion power is closer than ever. There are now around 30 U.S. fusion companies, several of which claim to be on track to connect to the grid as early as the 2030s.
Tokamak and laser inertial confinement approaches benefit from decades of research at facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ITER, with alternative concepts including stellarator, magnetic mirror, and Z-pinch confinement also making notable progress as private and government funding for fusion increases.
S. B. Degweker, Imre Pázsit
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 168 | Number 3 | July 2011 | Pages 248-264
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-08
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Invariant imbedding theory is an alternative formulation of particle transport theory. Until very recently, this theory was used only for deterministic calculations, i.e., for calculations of the first moment of the particle distribution. In a previous paper we set up a probability balance equation in the invariant imbedding approach. An equation was also obtained for the probability generating functional (pgfl) of reflected particles from which equations for the first- and second-order densities were derived. The approach was illustrated by a simple forward-backward scattering model with and without incorporating energy dependence to describe sputtering due to an external source of energetic particles on a medium. In this paper we extend these results to the case of a distributed internal source of particles. Among the possible applications, we discuss the problem of internal sputtering. We derive equations for the pgfl and the first- and second-order densities and show their connection with the external source problem. We treat the finite slab problem in addition to the semi-infinite slab geometry considered in our previous paper.