A possible route to producing fusion energy is via the so-called fast ignition of a dense plasma.
In this concept, a dense, spherical plasma is created by compressing a Deuterium-Tritium fuel capsule with a large number of accurately-aligned laser beams.
The resulting dense plasma is ignited (i.e. a fusion burn-wave is initiated) by a sharp pulse of high energy particles, also produced by a laser.
We are currently carrying out a number of experiments and simulations related to the igniting burst of high energy particles.
