Inertial electrostatic confinement and nuclear fusion in the interelectrode plasma of a nanosecond vacuum discharge. I: Experiment

Properties of an aerosol substance with a high power density in the interelectrode space of a nano- second vacuum discharge are studied. The possibilities of emission and/or trapping of fast ions and hard X-rays by ensembles of clusters and microparticles are analyzed. The possibility of simultaneous partial trapping (diffusion) of X-rays and complete trapping of fast ions by a cluster ensemble is demonstrated experimentally. Due to such trapping, the aerosol ensemble transforms into a “dusty” microreactor that can be used to investigate a certain class of nuclear processes, including collisional DD microfusion. Operating regimes of such a microreactor and their reproducibility were studied. On the whole, the generation efficiency of hard X-rays and neutrons in the proposed vacuum discharge with a hollow cathode can be higher by two orders of magnitude than that in a system “high-power laser pulse-cluster cloud.” Multiply repeated nuclear fusion accompanied by pulsating DD neutron emission was reproducibly detected in experiment. Ion acceleration mechanisms in the interelectrode space and the fundamental role of the virtual cathode in observed nuclear fusion processes are discussed.