Anyways... I've had a good rummage around on the forum and I am still confused on what the logic is that thermalisation with the electrons doesn't happen at the edges - or if it does then what subsequently happens to those heat-death ions.
As the ions slow down, what is Polywell's means to avoid upscattering to the electrons. Sure, the ions slow and turn around at the edge of the potential - to start with. But each time they loose a little to the electrons in this region, their 'turnaround' point will get slowly drawn to the centre of the device.
The problem as I see it is that as these ions slow and slow, they will essentially become 'contaminants' to the reactor as they will drop out of contention as sufficiently energetic fusible ions, ultimately forming the same central 'heat death' collection of ions at the centre, just like a fusor.
Circumferential scattering and edge annealing.
As I understand it, ions gain radial velocity from non-fusion collisions at the center (from the center, all possible vectors would be radial).
I think Nebel also said something that illuminated this at one point. As I recall, the ions are like bowling balls moving through ping pong balls; the ion-electron collisions just don't affect the ions much. As I recall, this is why Chacon's paper on ion convergence ignored ion-electron collisionality.
I think Nebel also said something that illuminated this at one point. As I recall, the ions are like bowling balls moving through ping pong balls; the ion-electron collisions just don't affect the ions much. As I recall, this is why Chacon's paper on ion convergence ignored ion-electron collisionality.
I can't see it myself. These are the conditions for thermalisation and some facts are needed if something else is assumed to happen. This really has needed some proper diagnostics on a working device for a long time and should be known after 25 years. I get some 'bad vibes' over not being able to find even laser diagnostics running in earlier devices as published data. Does anything like that exist?
Have you read the Chacon paper? I think someone (probaby Nebel) also mentioned the collision cross-sections are favorable.
Closer to 15 I think, but I agree.This really has needed some proper diagnostics on a working device for a long time and should be known after 25 years.
Well, keep in mind these have been operating on shoestring budgets for the most part, and Bussard was unable to publish due to the Navy gag order.I get some 'bad vibes' over not being able to find even laser diagnostics running in earlier devices as published data.
As I understand it laser diagnostics are no good because of low density. For that reason 100 GHz interferometery is preferred.
The difficulty is that WB-6 and WB-7 are pulsed machines making diagnostics difficult and ambiguous.
What we need is a steady state WB-8 in order to begin the real work. A fusor with water cooled grids might be a start. No one has ever - to my knowledge - done good diagnostics on one of those. We get bits - like well formation in "high density" gases diagnosed by lasers. But not the whole ball of wax - ion flows - electron flows etc.
Too much effort has gone into "net power" and not enough into "WTF is going on?"
The difficulty is that WB-6 and WB-7 are pulsed machines making diagnostics difficult and ambiguous.
What we need is a steady state WB-8 in order to begin the real work. A fusor with water cooled grids might be a start. No one has ever - to my knowledge - done good diagnostics on one of those. We get bits - like well formation in "high density" gases diagnosed by lasers. But not the whole ball of wax - ion flows - electron flows etc.
Too much effort has gone into "net power" and not enough into "WTF is going on?"
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