Van der Waals Correction to Nuclear Fusion by Mechanical Adiabatic Compression of a Dense Plasma

We consider fusion processes initiated by the rapid adiabatic compression by a piston of a deuterium plasma contained in a well‐insulated chamber. To exploit the n2 factor in the fusion reaction rate, we consider one mole of deuterium which, at ambient temperature and pressure, provides a particle density of ~ 10^19 cm^‐3. The reaction rate is enhanced by the application of magnetic and electric fields to reduce the number of degrees of freedom of the gas, thereby lowering its heat capacity and producing a higher temperature increase for a given energy input. Previous studies have shown that the combination of adiabatic operation, high particle density and reduced degrees of freedom can result in appreciable fusion rates at temperatures lower than those in magnetic confinement experiments. Prior work treated the deuterium gas as an ideal gas while the present work incorporates the corrections of a van der Waals gas. Both primary D-D reactions and secondary D-T reactions are considered. Conditions of energy-break-even and excess energy release were found at temperatures of the order of 10^6 K