Burning plasma
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In plasma physics, a burning plasma is a plasma that is heated primarily by fusion reactions involving thermal plasma ions.[1][2] The Sun and similar stars are a burning plasma, and in 2020 the National Ignition Facility achieved a burning plasma in the laboratory.[3] A closely related concept is that of an ignited plasma, in which all of the heating comes from fusion reactions.
The Sun and other main sequence stars are internally heated by fusion reactions involving hydrogen ions. The high temperatures needed to sustain fusion reactions are maintained by a self-heating process in which energy from the fusion reaction heats the thermal plasma ions via particle collisions. A plasma enters what scientists call the burning plasma regime when the self-heating power exceeds any external heating.[1]
The Sun is a burning plasma that has reached fusion ignition, meaning the Sun's plasma temperature is maintained solely by energy released from fusion. The Sun has been burning hydrogen for 4.5 billion years and is about halfway through its life cycle.[1]
Thermonuclear weapons
Thermonuclear weapons, also known as hydrogen bombs, are nuclear weapons that use energy released by a burning plasma's fusion reactions to produce part of their explosive yield. This is in contrast to pure-fission weapons, which produce all of their yield from a neutronic nuclear fission reaction. The first thermonuclear explosion, and thus the first man-made burning plasma, was the Ivy Mike test carried out by the United States in 1952. All high-yield nuclear weapons today are thermonuclear weapons.[4]
The National Ignition Facility
In 2020, a burning plasma was created in the laboratory for the first time at the National Ignition Facility, a large laser-based inertial confinement fusion research device located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California.[3] NIF achieved a fully ignited plasma on August 8, 2021,[5][6][7] and a scientific energy gain above one on December 5, 2022.[8][9]
