Laser ICF — light becomes pressure
Capsule implosions driven by high-energy laser systems: direct illumination of the capsule, indirect X-ray drive from a laser-heated hohlraum, and staged schemes that separate compression from ignition. SCPN-ICF-LASER-CORE owns the device truth of the laser_icf_direct_drive, laser_icf_indirect_drive and laser_icf_fast_or_shock_ignition configurations.
What the configuration is
A spherical capsule of frozen deuterium–tritium under a thin ablator is bathed in laser light, directly or as the X-rays of a gold hohlraum the beams heat. The ablator blows off, the reaction drives the shell inward at hundreds of kilometres per second, and at stagnation a small central hot spot must be dense enough along its radius to stop the alpha particles and hot enough to make them; the surrounding cold fuel then burns in a wave. Fast ignition adds a short-pulse igniter after compression; shock ignition adds a late strong shock. Everything a one-dimensional design is quoted by — adiabat, in-flight aspect ratio, convergence ratio, hydrodynamic efficiency — is a number the core evaluates from declared inputs.
What the core owns
- the device boundary: plant and experiment truth, shot lifecycle and configuration policy for capsule implosions driven by high-energy laser systems, all three coupling paths;
- drive-campaign semantics at device level: pulse-shaping declarations, beam-geometry and symmetry-control declarations, target and capsule metrology contracts, shot-cycle logistics;
- the declared configuration: driver energy, pulse duration and wavelength; capsule radius, whether a hohlraum and whether an ignitor pulse;
- 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
- Ion-beam and pulsed-electron-beam ICF: SCPN-ICF-BEAM-CORE; projectile and impact ICF: SCPN-ICF-IMPACT-CORE; magnetised liner inertial fusion: SCPN-MIF-MAGLIF-CORE.
- Solver mathematics and validation evidence (radiation hydrodynamics, radiation transport, burn physics): 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 hot-spot ignition condition in the four equivalent forms the filed review prints, with the energy relation \(f_kE_k = 2\pi P_{hs}R_{hs}^3\) that carries one into the other; the definitions a one-dimensional design is quoted by; the fuel inventory of a declared layering, the yield at a declared burnup and the target gain; a composed record that builds the capsule's initial inner radius from the outer radius and the declared thicknesses and refuses a layering that does not fit. Anchored on Craxton et al., Phys. Plasmas 22 (2015) 110501: the 40-µm coefficient recovered exactly from the two printed pressure coefficients and the reference radius; the design's initial inner radius 1503 µm and its aspect-ratio evaluation point 1002 µm exact from three printed lengths; the absorbed energy exact at 1425 kJ; the printed efficiency and absorbed fraction reproducing the printed 100 kJ shell kinetic energy to its one significant figure. Measured: the three printed coefficients close 0.53 % high on the energy relation; the pressure coefficient from the review's own floors is 115 Gbar where it prints 100. Not reproduced: the worked "120 to 180 Gbar" (112 to 125 at the stated inputs); the one-dimensional gain of 48 (about 57 by reconstruction). Neither is an anchor; nothing was adjusted to make them meet.
Load the 1.5 MJ design in the explorer →
Non-claims
- No radiation hydrodynamics, transport, laser–plasma-interaction or burn calculation is performed anywhere in the package.
- The capsule layering, the in-flight shell state and the burnup fraction are declared inputs; the solid-fuel density used in the inventory tests is a standard value the review does not print, and the fixtures say so.
- The ignition floors are necessary algebraic conditions on a design, never a prediction that a design ignites; the convergence ratio's definition carries a condition (alpha deposition off) no code here can enforce.
- No value describes, approximates or validates any real machine or shot; drive-scheme, target-design 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.