On the optimum laser power for maximum thermonuclear yield with deuterium-tritium pellets

Reports the results obtained in a parametric investigation of the thermonuclear yield of deuterium-tritium pellets as a function of the initial laser power. The hydrodynamic equations used to describe the pellet-laser interaction and subsequent evolution include the following physical processes: heat conduction with modifications due to the so-called free-streaming limit, energy exchange among the various particle species, ion viscosity, bremsstrahlung emission, classical absorption of laser power via inverse bremsstrahlung at densities below the critical density, rho _c and phenomenological anomalous absorption at densities rho > rho _c, and thermonuclear reactions. Spherical symmetry is assumed.