A new scenario for the application of very intense lasers to nuclear fusion

The ponderomotive motion of a charged particle inside a Terawatt-Petawatt laser pulse is studied. Based on a very simple classical model to account for the Coulomb repulsion, the possibility of nuclear collisions in the keV-MeV range is shown. Also, a simple analytical expression for the minimum internuclear distance is given. Since this range of energies is significant to trigger nuclear fusion reactions, this may result in an alternative approach to controlled fusion based on a non-thermalized plasma. The proposed system works for the deuterontriton fusion reaction, but is more appropriate for other reactions like the proton-⁷Li reaction, and also like the ecologically clean, boron-¹¹B reaction.