Beam target and colliding beam — one beam, one target
Non-thermal fusion systems in which reaction kinematics are set directly by accelerated beams — an energetic beam on a fixed or flowing target, or two counter-propagating beams brought to collision — without imploding or magnetically confining a thermal plasma. SCPN-BEAM-TARGET-CORE owns the device truth of the beam_target and colliding_beam configurations.
What the configuration is
The simplest way to make fusion reactions is to fire deuterons at a tritiated target; neutron generators do it every day. The reason it is not a power source is the energy balance the family requires to be declared honestly: an ion loses far more energy to the target's electrons by stopping and scattering than it can release by fusing, and the beam-target core states that no energy-gain claim of any kind is made or implied for its family. What the core carries is the one thing that is closed-form and printed — the total cross section of the six principal light-ion reactions — and the frame in which it must be evaluated, which for a colliding-beam machine is not the beam energy.
What the core owns
- the device boundary: plant and experiment truth, run lifecycle and configuration policy for beam-on-target and colliding-beam systems;
- beam-kinematics semantics as device truth: beam-energy and luminosity declarations, target-state declarations (solid, gas, plasma-loaded), centre-of-momentum reaction-rate accounting, and the energy-balance declarations this family requires (stopping-power and scattering losses against fusion output);
- the declared configuration: beam kinetic energy and beam current;
- diagnostic semantics, reference frames and clock identity declarations; the CONTROL adapter specification; the registry binding (version 1.0.0) and the domain manifest.
What it explicitly excludes
- Beam-driven implosion ICF: SCPN-ICF-BEAM-CORE; dense plasma focus (internally generated beam-target component): SCPN-DENSE-PLASMA-FOCUS-CORE; electrostatic potential-well devices: SCPN-IEC-CORE.
- Solver mathematics and validation evidence: SCPN-Fusion-Core, until an exact surface passes the reactor family migration gate; no solver code exists in, or was copied into, the device core.
- Typed signal semantics and comparability: SCPN-Phase-Orchestrator (review-only output, never actuation). Control admission and action formation: SCPN-Control. Machine protection: independent systems retain the final veto. Portfolio presentation and gating: SCPN-Studio.
Level-0 physics and its anchor
The Duane total cross section of the six principal light-ion reactions with the coefficients the 2019 NRL Plasma Formulary tabulates on page 44, its energy argument the incident-ion energy with the target at rest; the record evaluating the fit at the equivalent stationary-target energy rather than the declared beam energy and carrying both (four times the beam energy for equal-mass colliding beams, exact); the equal-mass approximation reported beside its exact value, 1.669 for D–T from the formulary's own masses against the 2 in force; ion rate and beam power with the elementary charge cancelling; the Gamow boundary at 0.0043 keV tested from both sides. Anchor, a cross-check inside one document: the ten printed Maxwellian D–T reaction rates from 1 to 1000 keV, every one recovered to the printed two significant figures by averaging the fit; the mass ratios and their printed roots each recovering the other. The cited cross-section works (Bosch & Hale; Wangler) are paywalled and not on file.
Move a beam across the D–T resonance in the explorer →
Non-claims
- No parameter set describes any real machine, and no reaction rate, yield, gain or breakeven statement follows from the record: no beam stopping, target density or target thickness is modelled anywhere.
- No energy-gain claim of any kind is made or implied for this family.
- Accelerator-architecture, target-state and fuel choices are configuration facets, not separate claims.
Capabilities and evidence
Evidence maturity computational_prototype, five implemented capabilities, each with its evidence record in VALIDATION.md: the device configuration model, the diagnostic and clock semantics model, level-0 device physics (the closed forms on this page), the device 3D model and the device CAD model. No parameter set or channel describes any real machine or diagnostic.