Plasma Fusion of Deuterons at Kiloelectron Volts With Extremely Heated Tritons

The mechanism that the author's recently developed for plasma fusion at kiloelectron volts (keV) has been extended from the D-
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He fusion with extremely heated
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He ions to the D-T fusion with extremely heated tritons. Two major significances of this extension are that the D-T fusion has the highest reactivity and the plasma does not need H ions, which do not participate in the fusion, because the plasma needs only to generate current-driven electrostatic D-cyclotron (CDEDC) waves for the extra heating of tritons rather than current-driven electrostatic H-cyclotron (CDEHC) waves for the extra heating of
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He ions. The extended mechanism works in a two-stage heating process when an electric current is driven through plasma that contains deuterons and tritons. First, the current ohmically heats the plasma up to some keV, at which the resistivity in the plasma is too low for the current to be significantly dissipated further. When the electric current is continuously driven up to a critical point, however, CDEDC waves are excited, which can preferentially heat tritons via the second-harmonic resonance further to tens of keV or higher, at which the nuclear fusion between the extremely heated tritons and the relatively cold deuterons occurs. In addition, this mechanism can greatly reduce technology and engineering difficulties in plasma control and confinement. This article also develops a new anisotropic model for plasma heating by ion-cyclotron waves and indicates that ions are mainly heated perpendicularly via the cyclotron resonances, while electrons are mainly heated in parallel via the Landau resonance.