Effect of Nuclear Elastic Scattering on Ion Heating in Thermonuclear Plasmas

Distortion in the fuel-ion (deuteron and triton) velocity distribution functions due to nuclear elastic scattering (NES) by beam ion and alpha-particle during neutral-beam-injection (NBI) plasma heating operation is studied by simultaneously solving the Boltzmann-Fokker-Planck (BFP) equations for deuteron, triton, alpha-particle and beam ion in the deuterium-tritium (DT) thermonuclear plasmas. Using the obtained distribution functions, enhancement in the T(d,n)
⁴
He fusion reaction rate coefficient between background deuteron and triton are estimated. It is shown that the enhancement in the T(d,n)
⁴
He reaction rate coefficient becomes appreciable in low-density operations, i.e. n
_e
les5times10
¹⁹
m
^-3