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Fusion cycle of the Sun The cycle starts with the thermal collision of two protons ( 1H + 1H) to form a deuteron (2H), with the simultaneous creation of a positron (e+) and a neutrino (v). The positron very quickly encounters a free electron (e-) in the sun and both particles annihilate, their mass energy appearing as two gamma-ray photons. Once the deuteron has been produced, it quickly collides with another proton and forms a 3He nucleus and a gamma ray. Two such 3He nuclei may eventually (within ten thousand years) find each other, as the bottom row shows. Overall, this amounts to the combination of four protons and two electrons to form an alpha particle (4He), two neutrinos, and six gamma rays. Thus, the overall equation is . The energy release in this reaction is
where 1.007825u is the mass of a hydrogen atom and 4.002603u is the mass of a helium atom; neutrinos and gamma-ray photons have no mass and thus do not enter into the calculation of disintegration energy.
The burning of hydrogen in the sun's core is alchemy on a grand scale in the sense that one element is turned into another. The medieval alchemists, however, were more interested in changing lead into gold than in changing hydrogen into helium! Hydrogen burning has been going on in the sun for about 5 billion years and calculations show that there is enough hydrogen left to keep the sun going for about the same length of time into the future. If the core temperature increases to about 108K then energy can be produced by burning helium to make carbon. As a star evolves and becomes still hotter, other elements can be formed by other fusion reactions. However, elements more massive than those with atomic number equal to 56 (iron) cannot be manufactured by further fusion processes as atomic number equal to 56 makes the peak of the binding energy curve. If nuclides were to fuse after that, then energy would be consumed as opposed to produced.
A High Particle Density The density of interacting particles must be great enough to ensure that the collision rate is high enough. A High Plasma Temperature The plasma must be hot. Otherwise the colliding particles will not be energetic enough to penetrate the electrical barrier that tends to keep them apart.
A Long Confinement Time A major problem is containing the hot plasma long enough to ensure that its density and temperature remain sufficiently high for enough of the fuel to be fused. It is clear that no solid container can withstand the high temperatures that are necessary, so clever confining techniques are called for.
Laser Fusion
A second technique for confining the plasma is called inertial confinement. It involves compressing a fuel pellet by "zapping" it from all sides by laser beams (or particle beams), thus compressing it and increasing its temperature and particle density so that thermonuclear fusion can occur. By comparison with devices such as the tokamak, inertial confinement invovles working with much higher particle densities for much shorter times. Laser fusion is being investigated in many laboratories in the United States and elsewhere. At the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the laser pulses are designed to deliver, in total, some 200 kJ of energy to each fuel pellet in less than a nanosecond. This is a delivered power of about 2 X 1014 W during the pulse, which is roughly 100 times the total
sustained electric power generating capacity of the world! The feasibility of laser fusion as the basis of a thermonuclear power reactor has not been demonstrated as of yet, but research is continuing at a vigorous pace.