ANULUM / SCPN Reactor Systems / Electrostatic, beam-target and hybrid systems

Electrostatic, beam-target and hybrid systems

This family gathers devices whose confinement or gain does not come from a magnetic bottle. Inertial-electrostatic confinement accelerates ions into a deep potential well through a grid or, in the polywell, a virtual cathode inside a cusp field (the polywell's cusp topology is kept here because its energy and reaction workflow is electrostatic). Colliding-beam and beam-target devices fuse directed beams; the fusion–fission hybrid uses a fusion neutron source to drive a subcritical blanket, with no chain reaction.

Each device core below is the single owner of its reactor family's configuration truth inside the SCPN Reactor Systems research group. Solver mathematics stays in SCPN-Fusion-Core, shared physics and geometry kernels in SCPN Reactor Kernels; a device core consumes them through versioned seams and cannot actuate anything directly.

Device cores in this family

SCPN-IEC-CORE · IEC and polywell · A Well Deep Enough To Fuse Owns the configurations: gridded IEC, polywell repository · evidence maturity: computational_prototype · 3 implemented capabilities: device configuration model, diagnostic and clock semantics, level-0 device physics · no release, no demo
SCPN-BEAM-TARGET-CORE · Beam target · One Beam, One Target Owns the configurations: beam target, colliding beam repository · evidence maturity: computational_prototype · 5 implemented capabilities: device configuration model, diagnostic and clock semantics, level-0 device physics, device 3D model, device CAD model · no release, no demo
SCPN-FUSION-FISSION-HYBRID-CORE · Fusion–fission hybrid · A Source, A Blanket, No Chain Owns the configurations: fusion–fission hybrid repository · evidence maturity: computational_prototype · 5 implemented capabilities: device configuration model, diagnostic and clock semantics, level-0 device physics, device 3D model, device CAD model · no release, no demo

Where to start

Read the physicsThe geometry of a spherical cathode grid and the pass-count bound, the Duane cross-section fit with the frame stated, and the four figures of merit of a hybrid. Try the explorerBuild a globe or symmetric grid, move a beam across the D–T resonance in both frames, or load the ORNL semicatalysed D–D driver with a thorium blanket. Walk the three configurationsIEC and polywell, beam target and colliding beam, fusion–fission hybrid: what each core owns, excludes, anchors on and does not claim. See where the polywell sitsIts cusp topology is magnetic; its energy and reaction workflow is an electrostatic well, and the portfolio standard assigns it here. Check the sourcesWulfkühler et al. 2024, Radel 2007, the NRL Plasma Formulary 2019, Saltmarsh, Grimes and Santoro 1979, and what each core reproduces.

Other families

Closed magnetic confinement5 device cores Open and non-toroidal magnetic confinement3 device cores Self-magnetic and pulsed pinches3 device cores Inertial confinement3 device cores Magneto-inertial and magnetised-target systems4 device cores Electrostatic, beam-target and hybrid systems3 device cores Compare all sixevery level-0 anchor side by side