Different Fusion Methods
3 primary plasma confinement methods
I. Gravitational confinement -- astrophysical contexts
II. Magnetic confinement
III. Inertial confinement -- inertia of the fuel confines it for the nanoseconds (10-9 s) required for the fusion reaction to proceed
Practical problem: combination of high temperatures and densities are required to force positively charged nuclei together, but the resulting high pressure will tend to blow fusion plasma (hot ionized gas) apart
Fusion plasmas created using the second and third confinement methods also have astrophysical and basic physics relevance; for example, in the study of magnetic reconnection (e.g. SSX), radiation hydrodynamics, & X-ray emission and spectroscopy
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