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Compact high‐field toroids: a shortcut to ignition?

MAY 01, 1981

DOI: 10.1063/1.2914562

Bertram M. Schwarzschild

The achievement of thermonuclear ignition in a deuterium–tritium plasma will require a temperature well in excess of 4 keV (50 million kelvin), and a confinement parameter $nτ$ (particle $density \times confinement$ time) greater than $10^{14} \sec / {cm}^{3} .$ This important goal is being pursued primarily by designing and building ever larger tokamaks. But despite the size and cost of the large tokamaks now under construction in this country (Princeton’s TFTR), Europe (JET), Japan (JT‐60) and Russia (T‐15), it is not expected that this generation of machines will achieve a self‐sustaining plasma burn. To that end, still larger tokamaks, costing a billion dollars or more, are now in the planning stage.

© 1981. American Institute of Physics

This Content Appeared In

Volume 34, Number 5

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