Impact of First-Principles Property Calculations of Warm-Dense Deuterium/Tritium on Inertial Confinement Fusion Target Designs

Accurate knowledge of the properties of warm dense deuterium/tritium (DT) is essential to reliably design inertial confinement fusion (ICF) implosions. In the warm-dense-matter regime, routinely accessed by low-adiabat ICF implosions,\footnote{S. X. Hu \textit{et al}., Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{104}, 235003 (2010).} strong-coupling and degeneracy effects play an important role in determining plasma properties. Using first-principles methods of both path-integral Monte Carlo and quantum molecular-dynamics (QMD), we have performed systematic investigation of the equation of state,\footnote{S. X. Hu \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. B \textbf{84}, 224109 (2011). } thermal conductivity,\footnote{V. Recoules \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{102}, 075002 (2009). } \footnote{F. Lambert \textit{et al.}, Phys. Plasmas \textbf{18}, 056306 (2011). } \footnote{S. X. Hu \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. E \textbf{89}, 043105 (2014). } and opacity\footnote{S. X. Hu \textit{et al.,} ``First-Principles Opacity Table of Warm-Dense Deuterium for ICF Applications,'' submitted to Physical Review E. } for DT over a wide range of densities and temperatures. These first-principles properties have been incorporated into our hydrocodes. When compared to hydro simulations using standard plasma models, significant differences in 1-D target performance have been identified for simulations of DT implosions. For low-adiabat $\left( {\alpha \le 2} \right)$ DT plasma conditions, the QMD-predicted opacities are $10$ to $100 \times$ higher than predicted by the cold-opacity--patched astrophysical opacity table. The thermal conductivity could be $3$ to $10 \times$ larger than the Lee--More model prediction. These enhancements can modify the shell adiabat and shock dynamics in lower-$\alpha $ ICF implosions, which could lead to $\sim 40\% $ variations in peak density and neutron yield. This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under Award Number DE-NA0001944.