For muon-catalyzed fusion to be of practical interest, a very efficient means of producing muons must be found. We describe a scheme for producing muons that may be more energy efficient than any heretofore proposed. There are, in particular, some potential advantages of creating muons from collisions of high energy tritons confined in a magnetic mirror configuration. If one could catalyze 200 fusions per muon and employ a uranium blanket that would multiply the neutron energy by a factor of 10, one might produce electricity with an overall plant efficiency (ratio of electric energy produced to nuclear energy released) approaching 30%. One possible near term application of a muon-producing magnetic-mirror scheme would be to build a high-flux neutron source for radiation damage studies. The careful arrangement of triton orbits will result in many of the ..pi../sup -/'s being produced near the axis of the magnetic mirror. The pions quickly decay into muons, which are transported into a small (few-cm-diameter) reactor chamber producing approximately 1-MW/m/sup 2/ neutron flux on the chamber walls, using a laboratory accelerator and magnetic mirror. The costs of construction and operation of the triton injection accelerator probably introduces most of the uncertainty in the viability of this …

The vaporization of a spherically symmetric liquid droplet homogeneously heated by a high-intensity laser pulse is investigated on the basis of a hydrodynamic description of the system composed of the vapor and ambient gas. In the limit of convective vaporization, the boundary conditions at the fluid-gas interface are formulated by using the notion of a Knudsen layer across which translational equilibrium is established. Numerical solutions to the hydrodynamic equations exhibit the existence of two shock waves propagating in opposite directions with respect to the contact discontinuity that separates the ambient gas and vapor. 17 refs., 6 figs.

One possible near term application of a muon-producing magnetic-mirror scheme would be to build a high-flux neutron source for radiation damage studies. The careful arrangement of triton orbits will result in many of the ..pi../sup -/s being produced near the axis of the magnetic mirror. The pions quickly decay into muons, which are transported into a small (few-cm-diameter) reactor chamber producing approximately 1-MW/m/sup 2/ neutron flux on the chamber walls, using a laboratory accelerator and magnetic mirror. The costs of construction and operation of the triton injection accelerator probably introduces most of the uncertainty in the viability of this scheme. If a 10-..mu..A, 600 MeV neutral triton accelerator could be built for less than $100 million and operated cheaply enough, one might well bring muon-catalyzed fusion into practical use.

We have successfully constructed and tested a pair of high-field coils that is part of the magnet set of the Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF-B) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Each coil consists of a multifilamentary Nb/sub 3/Sn magnet nested inside a multifilamentary NbTi magnet. During our test, these coils produced a central field of 12 T, with a peak conductor field of 12.5 T. The dimensions of the Nb/sub 3/Sn insert coil are: 1.34-m bore, 2.57-m outer diameter, and 1.14-m overall length. These coils were designed to be fully cryogenically stabilized and cooled by pool-boiling liquid helium. The operating current density of the Nb/sub 3/Sn coils is 2000 A/cm/sup 2/ and 2400 A/cm/sup 2/ for the NbTi magnet. In this paper, we present design considerations and details, construction techniques, and operational results of these coils.

An extended series of experiments has been used to investigate transition radiation in the x-ray spectral region. The x-rays were generated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory electron-positron linear accelerator by 54 MeV electrons traversing multiple thin-foil targets. The measured angular and spectral distributions have shown excellent agreement with calculated predictions based on a simplified theoretical description of transition radiation. Recently, energy-resolved measurements of x-ray generation by targets consisting of multiple closely-spaced foils has clearly demonstrated the longitudinal coherence of transition radiation. This behavior might lead to a variety of applications such as tuneable narrow-band x-ray sources, measurement of x-ray dielectric constants, or particle beam diagnostics. These issues will be discussed, and recent results will be presented.

Atomic data for the electron-impact ionization of ions in the Fe isonuclear sequence is reviewed. The best available data are identified. Comments are made on current research activities leading to future data for Fe ions. 23 refs., 29 figs., 12 tabs.

Silicon-germanium alloys are used as thermoelectric materials for radioisotope thermoelectric generators. One problem is the loss of the alloy by sublimation. In the Unicouple, sublimation was minimized by a Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ coating. In the Multicouple design the application of Si/sub 3/N/sub 4/ coatings which is done at high temperature is not practical. Suppression of sublimation in the Multicouple design is presently accomplished by applying glass coatings. The difficulties encountered with the glass coatings are associated with the poor adherence of the coatings. In the present study, commercial oxide points (mainly ZrO/sub 2/) which have low thermal expansion coefficients are used as coating materials. No spalling from the surface of the coated sample occurred in 1506 hours at 1080/sup 0/C in vacuum, and sublimation was reduced significantly. Zirconium silicate was observed on the surface by x-ray diffraction.