Laser-assisted deuterium-tritium fusion: A quantum dynamical model

Deuterium-tritium (D-T) fusion is a key to generating safe, clean, and limitless energy on Earth in future fusion power plants. Its understanding at low collision energies is incomplete, as D-T fusion is a quantum tunneling process affected by resonances whose origin is linked to properties of not fully understood nuclear forces. Simplified quantum dynamical calculations of laser-assisted D-T fusion are presented, suggesting that laser-nucleus interaction can enhance the average D-T fusion probability by 7–<a:math xmlns:a="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><a:mrow><a:mn>70</a:mn><a:mo>%</a:mo></a:mrow></a:math> at deep subbarrier energies using laser fields of intensity <b:math xmlns:b="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><b:msup><b:mn>10</b:mn><b:mn>27</b:mn></b:msup></b:math>–<c:math xmlns:c="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><c:msup><c:mn>10</c:mn><c:mn>29</c:mn></c:msup><c:mo> </c:mo><c:msup><c:mrow><c:mi mathvariant="normal">W</c:mi><c:mspace width="4pt"/><c:mi>cm</c:mi></c:mrow><c:mrow><c:mo>−</c:mo><c:mn>2</c:mn></c:mrow></c:msup></c:math> and a photon energy of 1 eV. Published by the American Physical Society 2024