Approaching a burning plasma on the NIF

The locus of National Ignition Facility (NIF) inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosion data, in hot-spot burn-average areal density (ρR) and Brysk temperature (T) space, is shown and illustrates that several implosions are nearing a burning plasma state, where α-heating is the dominant source of plasma heating. A formula for diagnosing a burning plasma using measured/inferred data from ICF implosion experiments is given with the underlying derivation. Plotting ICF implosion performance against inferred hot-spot energy illustrates the key need to maximize the delivery of energy to an implosion hot-spot. A very compact analytical equation for α-heating is given, which shows that fundamentally, α-heating provides a discrete "boost" to pVγ of an implosion hot-spot. It is then shown numerically that the analytical expression for the amplification of pVγ is simply related to yield amplification and to other more famous metrics used for inferring yield amplification in experiments. Interestingly, the argument of the pVγ boost equation appears to provide a fundamental ignition condition that implicitly includes the effects of asymmetry, and it also exposes the origin of why there is uncertainty in defining single ignition criteria. The resulting analysis of NIF implosion data indicates that an increase in burn-average hot-spot temperature will be needed in order to ignite, and the strategy being pursued to achieve this goal is outlined.