Antimatter-catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion
|This article is outdated. (July 2013)|
Antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion is a variation of nuclear pulse propulsion based upon the injection of antimatter into a mass of nuclear fuel which normally would not be useful in propulsion. The anti-protons used to start the reaction are consumed, so it is a misnomer to refer to them as a catalyst.
Traditional nuclear pulse propulsion has the downside that the minimum size of the engine is defined by the minimum size of the nuclear bombs used to create thrust. With conventional technologies nuclear explosives can scale down to about 1/100 kiloton (10 tons, 42 GJ; W54), but making them smaller seems difficult. Large nuclear explosive charges require a heavy structure for the spacecraft, and a very large (and heavy) pusher-plate assembly. Small nuclear explosives are believed to stop shrinking in overall size and required fissile nuclear materials at a weight of around 25 kilograms, so smaller pulse units are much more expensive per delivered unit energy, and much less mass efficient than larger ones. By injecting a small amount of antimatter into a subcritical mass of fuel (typically plutonium or uranium) fission of the fuel can be forced. An anti-proton has a negative electric charge just like an electron, and can be captured in a similar way by a positively charged atomic nucleus. The initial configuration, however, is not stable and radiates energy as gamma rays. As a consequence, the anti-proton moves closer and closer to the nucleus until they eventually touch, at which point the anti-proton and a proton are both annihilated. This reaction releases a tremendous amount of energy, of which some is released as gamma rays and some is transferred as kinetic energy to the nucleus, causing it to explode. The resulting shower of neutrons can cause the surrounding fuel to undergo rapid fission or even nuclear fusion.
The lower limit of the device size is determined by anti-proton handling issues and fission reaction requirements; as such, unlike either the Project Orion-type propulsion system, which requires large numbers of nuclear explosive charges, or the various anti-matter drives, which require impossibly expensive amounts of antimatter, antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion has intrinsic advantages.
A conceptual design of a thermonuclear explosive physics package, is one in which the primary mass of plutonium, usually necessary for the ignition in a conventional Teller-Ulam thermonuclear explosion, is replaced by one microgram of antihydrogen. In this theoretical design, the antimatter is helium cooled and magnetically levitated in the center of the device, in the form of a pellet a tenth of a mm in diameter, a position analogous to the primary fission core in the layer cake/Sloika design). As the antimatter must remain away from ordinary matter until the desired moment of the explosion, the central pellet must be isolated from the surrounding hollow sphere of 100 grams of thermonuclear fuel. During and after the implosive compression by the high explosive lenses, the fusion fuel comes into contact with the antihydrogen. Annihilation reactions, which would start soon after the Penning trap is destroyed, is to provide the energy to begin the nuclear fusion in the thermonuclear fuel. If the chosen degree of compression is high, a device with increased explosive/propulsive effects is obtained, and if it is low, that is, the fuel is not at high density, a considerable number of neutrons will escape the device, and a neutron bomb forms. In both cases the electromagnetic pulse effect and the radioactive fallout are substantially lower than that of a conventional fission or Teller-Ulam device of the same yield, approximately 1 kt.
The storing of microgram amounts of antihydrogen for such a thermonuclear device, and the production of the 10^18 antiprotons per day,, which is said to be the approximate quantity required for triggering one thermonuclear explosion, were analyzed in 2005.
Tuning of the performance of a space vehicle is also possible. Rocket efficiency is strongly related to the mass of the working mass used, which in this case is the nuclear fuel. The energy released by a given mass of fusion fuel is several times larger than that released by the same mass of a fission fuel. For missions requiring short periods of high thrust, such as manned interplanetary missions, pure microfission might be preferred because it reduces the number of fuel elements needed. For missions with longer periods of higher efficiency but with lower thrust, such as outer-planet probes, a combination of microfission and fusion might be preferred because it would reduce the total fuel mass.
The concept was invented at Pennsylvania State University before 1992. Since then, several groups have studied antimatter-catalyzed micro fission/fusion engines in the lab (sometimes antiproton as opposed to antimatter or antihydrogen).
Work has been performed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on antiproton-initiated fusion as early as 2004. In contrast to the large mass, complexity and recirculating power of conventional drivers for inertial confinement fusion (ICF), antiproton annihilation offers a specific energy of 90 MJ per µg and thus a unique form of energy packaging and delivery. In principle, antiproton drivers could provide a profound reduction in system mass for advanced space propulsion by ICF. Antiproton-driven ICF is a speculative concept, and the handling of antiprotons and their required injection precision—temporally and spatially—will present significant technical challenges. The storage and manipulation of low-energy antiprotons, particularly in the form of antihydrogen, is a science in its infancy and a large scale-up of antiproton production over present supply methods would be required to embark on a serious R&D programme for such applications. The current (2011) record for antimatter storage is just over 1000 seconds performed in the CERN facility, a monumental leap from the millisecond timescales that previously were achievable.
- Kircher. "Antimatter: Fission/Fusion Drive". Retrieved 8 October 2012.
- http://www.slideshare.net/dpolson/nuclear-fusion-4405625 page 11
- http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq1.html#nfaq1.5 Sloika
- http://cui.unige.ch/isi/sscr/phys/anti-BPP-3.html Figure 2. Helium cooled Magnetically levitated anti-hydrogen containing pit, surrounded by fusion fuel, all compressed by a high explosive lense implosion.
- http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0507125 arXiv:physics/0507125v2 Antimatter induced fusion and thermonuclear explosions
- "Antiproton-Catalyzed Microfission/Fusion Propulsion Systems For Exploration Of The Outer Solar System And Beyond". Retrieved 8 October 2012.
- Perkins, Orth, Tabak. "On the utility of antiprotons as drivers for inertial confinement fusion". Retrieved 8 October 2012.
- "Confinement of antihydrogen for 1,000 seconds". Retrieved 8 October 2012.
- Page discussing the possibility of using antimatter as a trigger for a thermonuclear explosion
- Paper discussing the number of antiprotons required to ignite a thermonuclear weapon.