Direct heating of air by alpha particles
Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2010 2:22 am
Some questions for people better versed in particle beam physics than myself:
The range of 5 MeV alphas in air (1 atm) is about 3 cm. Polywell's 2-3 Mev alphas should be absorbed in less distance than that.
If the magrid field is strong enough to cause alphas to exit roughly along coil axes, as has been suggested elsewhere on this forum (and maybe also out the magrid corners, but no more than 14 crude "beams"), would it be possible to use something like electrostatic lenses (maybe with additional, smaller magnets) to further concentrate the alphas after they leave the magrid and have them exit the vacuum chamber into air through a small aperture?
Would the air (or maybe air+propellant) be heated sufficiently by the 2-3 MeV alphas to be used for propulsion? Or, would secondary particles steal the show? I'm thinking of use at low altitudes where ozone would be bad, precluding REB for QED/ARC.
This picture of a cyclotron beam in air shows that you can get an ion beam out of a vacuum chamber. May not be steady state, though, I don't know. Would any air molecule dare try to enter the vacuum chamber against such an ion outflow?
The range of 5 MeV alphas in air (1 atm) is about 3 cm. Polywell's 2-3 Mev alphas should be absorbed in less distance than that.
If the magrid field is strong enough to cause alphas to exit roughly along coil axes, as has been suggested elsewhere on this forum (and maybe also out the magrid corners, but no more than 14 crude "beams"), would it be possible to use something like electrostatic lenses (maybe with additional, smaller magnets) to further concentrate the alphas after they leave the magrid and have them exit the vacuum chamber into air through a small aperture?
Would the air (or maybe air+propellant) be heated sufficiently by the 2-3 MeV alphas to be used for propulsion? Or, would secondary particles steal the show? I'm thinking of use at low altitudes where ozone would be bad, precluding REB for QED/ARC.
This picture of a cyclotron beam in air shows that you can get an ion beam out of a vacuum chamber. May not be steady state, though, I don't know. Would any air molecule dare try to enter the vacuum chamber against such an ion outflow?