Investigation of Ion Generation Rates in an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Device by Spectroscopy-Based Inverse Analysis

A novel inverse analysis method was developed and tested to determine the spatial distribution of the ionization rate of hydrogen gas in an inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) fusion device. The ionization rate distributions were inversely determined so that an experimentally observed Hα spectrum could be reproduced by the linear combination of Hα partial spectra that were numerically predicted by one-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations. This method is useful for improving the performance of IEC fusion device as a neutron source because the ionization rate distribution greatly affects the ion energy distribution and fusion rate.