The reaction mechanisms in the plasma focus. Investigations on accelerated deuterons and reaction protons

The Gyrating Particle Mode (GPM) was developed to analyze the mechanisms leading to high suprathermal fusion production in a plasma focus. The trajectories of fast deuterons were determined by a ray tracing code. Coulomb collisions with the thermal plasma electrons and fusion collisions with the thermal deuterons were treated by Monte Carlo methods. The spatial, angular, and spectral distributions and the time evolution of the reaction protons and neutrons were measured. The fusion output can be quantitatively explained with the GPM. Quantitative agreements between theory and measurements show that a generalized beam target model combined with the GPM yields credible data for the fast neutron component, and describes well the fusion reaction mechanisms in the plasma focus.