Quodons in tokamak fusion reactors

Quodons in tokamak fusion reactors F. Michael Russell†, Juan F.R. Archilla‡,∗ †School of Computing and Engineering, University of Huddersfield, HD1 3DH, United Kingdom ‡Group of Nonlinear Physics, Department of Applied Physics I Universidad de Sevilla, ETSII, Avda Reina Mercedes s/n, 41012-Sevilla, Spain Email: [email protected], ∗corresponding author: [email protected], Abstract— Experiments have shown that alpha particles incident on different materials bring about the generation of quodons, that is packets of localized energy that can bind to an electric charge and transport it without the presence of an electric field, a phenomenon called hyperconductivity. Tokamak fusion reactors produce a huge amount of alpha particles, transporting energy and charge trough insulators and metals at much more speed that ohmic conduction and heat conductivity. The consequences are still unclear but should be studied and incorporated in reactor designs. 1. Introduction Current design of fusion tokamak reactors are based in the reaction of deuterium (D or 2 1H) and tritium (T or 3 1H) according to the exothermic nuclear reaction: 2 1H+3 1H→4 2He (3.5 MeV) +1 0n (14 MeV) The energy carried out by the alpha particles (4 2He) and neutrons has to be transformed in heat and eventually into electric power, although ITER [1] will just produce heat that has to be evacuated by powerful cryogenic systems. However, both particles also have other intended uses. Some part of the alpha particles are expected to thermalize producing a burning plasma, that is, they would give enough energy to keep the plasma at 150 millions of Kelvin so as the fusion reaction continues. However, a significative part of the alpha particles would escape the plasma and hit the walls of the container. Most of he neutrons will escape the plasma confinement due to their absence of electric charge and will hit the walls of the plasma container. As tritium is not easy to obtain, these walls will be covered with lithium, either 6Li of 7Li, forming a breeding blanket, to breed tritium so it can be reused into the reactor by the nuclear reactions: 1 0n+6 3Li →4 2He (2.05 MeV) +3 1H (2.75 MeV) 1 0n+7 3Li →4 2He+3 1H+1 0n (Endothermic) Both 6 3Li and 7 3Li are naturally occurring isotopes, 6 3Li being between 2% and 8% and the rest being 7 3Li. The breeding blanket should be enriched with 6 3Li in order to ORCID iDs FM Russell: 0000-0002-1178-1784, JFR Archilla: 0000-0001-6583-6114 keep the general process exothermic as intended in a nuclear reactor. It is essential that this process is achieved as tritium is not easy to obtain otherwise, so we can predict that many neutrons in the plasma will eventually lead to alpha particles. 2. Results Recently 5.1 MeV alpha particles from 241Am has been used in experiments of hyperconductivity, that is the transport of charge at room temperature in absence of an electric field [2]. The charge is transported by nonlinear excitations called quodons that also leave fossil tracks and may carry electric charge [3]. New experimental results [4] of irradiating samples of tantalum and tungsten with alpha particles suggest that each 3.5 MeV hitting a heavy metal would generate at least 104quodons. Their speed of km/s was also measured with time-of-flight experiments. The conclusion is that many quodons with the capacity of very fast transport energy and charge through metals and insulators will be created with possible unintended consequences for the reactor design as possibly the overwhelming of the cryogenic system. The effect of quodons should be taken into account with the necessary design modifications. Acknowledgments JFRA thanks project MICINN PID2019-109175GB- C22, and travel help from Universidad de Sevilla VIIPPITUS-2023. FMR wishes to thank Chris Eilbeck, Leonor Cruzeiro and Larissa Brizhik for useful discussions. References [1] https://www.iter.org/mach/tokamak (2023) [2] F.M. Russell, J.F.R. Archilla, F. Frutos, S. Medina- Carrasco, EPL 120, 46001 (2017); F.M. Russell, A.W. Russell, J.F.R. Archilla, EPL 127(1), 16001 (2019) [3] J.F.R. Archilla, F.M. Russell, Letters on Materials 6, 3 (2016) [4] F.M. Russell. Experimental data on quodon current in metals (2023). To be published – 686 – 2023 International Symposium on Nonlinear Theory and Its Applications NOLTA2023, September 26-29, 2023, Catania and Online This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.