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Fusion energy: Progress, partnerships, and the path to deployment
Over the past decade, fusion energy has moved decisively from scientific aspiration toward a credible pathway to a new energy technology. Thanks to long-term federal support, we have significantly advanced our fundamental understanding of plasma physics—the behavior of the superheated gases at the heart of fusion devices. This knowledge will enable the creation and control of fusion fuel under conditions required for future power plants. Our progress is exemplified by breakthroughs at the National Ignition Facility and the Joint European Torus.
Elad Steinberg, Shay I. Heizler
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 197 | Number 9 | September 2023 | Pages 2343-2355
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2190728
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This work generalizes the discrete implicit Monte Carlo (DIMC) method for modeling the radiative transfer equation from a gray treatment to a frequency-dependent one. The classic implicit Monte Carlo (IMC) algorithm, which has been used for several decades, suffers from a well-known numerical problem, called teleportation, where the photons might propagate faster than the exact solution due to the finite size of the spatial and temporal resolution. The semi-analog Monte Carlo algorithm proposed the use of two kinds of particles, photons and material particles, that are born when a photon is absorbed. The material particle can “propagate” only by transforming into a photon due to black-body emissions. While this algorithm produces a teleportation-free result, its results are noisier compared to the IMC due to the discrete nature of the absorption-emission process.
In a previous work, Steinberg and Heizler [ApJS, Vol. 258, p. 14 (2022)] proposed a gray version of DIMC that makes use of two kinds of particles, and therefore has teleportation-free results, but also uses the continuous absorption algorithm of IMC, yielding smoother results. This work is a direct frequency-dependent (energy-dependent) generalization of the DIMC algorithm. We find in several one- and two-dimensional benchmarks that the new frequency-dependent DIMC algorithm yields teleportation-free results on one hand, and smooth results with an IMC-like noise level.