Researchers from CELIA (Centre Lasers Intenses et Applications – Université de Bordeaux / CNRS / CEA), in collaboration with other international laboratories from the academia, national labs and industry, have recently published in Physical Review Research (PRR) important results about the influence of an external magnetic field on the physics of laser-driven fusion (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.L012018).

Magnetization is a key strategy to enhance inertial confinement fusion performance. The Letter published in PRR reports results from argon-doped deuterium-filled cylindrical implosions experiments carried out at the OMEGA laser facility with and without an imposed magnetic field. Systematic changes in argon K-shell emission lines reveal a 50% core temperature increase when a 30 T seed magnetic field is applied. Experimental spectra are in line with extended-MHD simulations, which provide strong evidence for the impact of a 10 kT compressed field during peak compression, thus offering key insights for the validation of magnetized transport models in dense plasmas.

This research is a fruit of an ongoing collaboration between researchers from CELIA (Université de Bordeaux-CNRS-CEA), University of California – San Diego (USA), Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA), Universidad de Valladolid (Spain), University of Nevada – Reno (USA), General Atomics (USA) and Imperial College London (UK).