Quantifying the Effect of Heterogeneous Mix on Thermonuclear Burn in the Marble Campaign*

The recently concluded Marble campaign [T J Murphy et al, J Phys:Conf Series 717, 012072 (2016)] on the National Ignition Facility quantified the effect of heterogeneous mix on thermonuclear burn for comparison to a probability distribution function (PDF) burn model. [J R Fincke, unpublished; J R Ristorcelli, Phys Fluids 29, 020705 (2017).] MARBLE utilized plastic capsules filled with deuterated plastic foam and tritium-containing gas. The final experiments, which utilized an argon-tritium gas mixture, show the expected decrease in DT/DD yield ratio with non-uniform initial foam morphology, while previous experiments with a hydrogen-tritium gas mixture did not. [T J Murphy et al, High Energy. Dens. Phys. 38,100929 (2021).]