The persistence of Maxwellian D and T distributions during burn in inertial confinement fusion

We present particle simulations of the heating of a DT plasma by fusion-produced α-particles. The D, T and α-particles are each treated as separate kinetic species while the electrons are assumed to be Maxwellian. Fusion reactions are also simulated for the D and T ions in such a way as to account correctly for any non-thermal effects. It is shown that the D and T ions remain close to Maxwellian under a wide range of conditions and correspondingly the fusion reactivity remains thermal.