The role of nuclear reactions and α-particle transport in the dynamics of inertial confinement fusion capsules

This paper is devoted to the study of the deceleration phase of inertial confinement capsules. The purpose is to obtain a zero-dimensional model that has the form of a closed system of ordinary differential equations for the main hydrodynamic quantities. The model takes into account the energy released by nuclear reactions, a nonlocal model for the α-particle energy deposition process, and radiation loss by electron bremsstrahlung. The asymptotic analysis is performed in the case of a strong temperature dependence of the thermal conductivity. We finally study the beginning of the expansion phase after stagnation to derive an ignition criterion.