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10ON THE FEATURES OF BURSTS OF HARD X-RAYS, NEUTRONS AND ALPHA-PARTICLES IN THE PULSE NANOSECOND VACUUM DISCHARGE WITH A VIRTUAL CATHODE
Yu. K. Kurilenkov
Joint Institute for High Temperatures, Russian Academy of Sciences, Izhorskaya Str., 13, 125412 Moscow, Russia
yukurilenkov@rambler. ru
We continue to study experimentally hard x-rays and DD neutrons generation on the background of different interelectrode clusters ensembles (ICE) in nanosecond vacuum discharge (NVD) with virtual cathode. These ensembles are appearing under voltage applied, when autoelectron beams start to interact with deuterium -loaded Pd anode. Simultaneously, interaction of autoelectrons with ICA produce hard x-rays. Potential well of virtual cathode accelerate deuterons up to tens keV, and head-on collisions of deuterons on the bottom of potential well accompanied by DD fusion neutrons. Fast ions, neutrons or hard x-rays simultaneously interact with ICE but by different manner and with different consequences. "Transparent" or dense ICE manifest different ability to release or trap few keV hard x-rays. Starting from some ensemble densities we observed the trapping of fast ions and the beginning of x-rays diffusion. Self-organized dense ensembles are totally trap fast ions, provide essential trapping of few keV x-rays and just neutrons are leaving them. The output of DD neutrons in these regimes is conditioned not only by the head-on deuteron-deuteron collisions in the potential well of virtual cathode, but also by the channel of "deuteron - deuterium cluster" reaction, which exceeds overall yield of neutrons per a shot by more than an order of magnitude, bringing it up to ~107 /4n. Besides of diffused and trapped hard x-rays, very bright bursts of hard x-rays from ICE are represented and discussed also. Presumably, their nature may be associated with the appearance in the NVD of some properties of random (stochastic) laser [1] in the x-ray spectrum. Good preceding agreeing of the experiment on the DD fusion in the NVD with its PIC simulations [2,3] provides a basis to begin consideration of nuclear burning "proton - boron" at NVD. With this objective in view, there has been started the PIC-simulation of aneutronic burning of p - B11, and its preliminary results are presented.
1. Letokhov V S 1968 Sov. Phys. - JETP 16 835-840; Letokhov V S 2002 Quantum Electronics 32 1065-1079
2. Kurilenkov Y K, Tarakahov V P, Skowronek M, Gus'kov S Y and Dufty J 2009 Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical 42 214041
3. Kurilenkov Y K, Tarakahov V P, Gus'kov S Y, Karpukhin V T and Valyano V E 2011 Contrib. Plasma Phys. 51 427-443
