Evaluating a Contribution of the Knock-on Deuterons to the Neutron Yield in the Experiments with Weakly Collisional Plasma Jets (Part 2)

Part 1 of this note considered the kinematics of large-angle scattering (LAS) of the deuterons on the counter-streaming carbon ions, with both flows having the same velocity V. Due to a large mass ratio mC/mD, the backscattered deuterons have high velocity of up to (24/7)V. This significantly increases the cross-section for the neutron production in the collisions between the back-scattered and incoming deuterons and may provide significant contribution to the total neutron yield, despite the smallness of a large-angle Coulomb cross-section. This effect becomes particularly important when only one of the colliding streams is made of CD, whereas the other stream is made of CH. Part 1 evaluated the neutron yield produced by this mechanism and have found that its relative role increases for higher plasma densities and lower velocities. Part 2 discusses signatures of this effect which can be used to identify it experimentally and also discusses in some more detail its spatio-temporal characteristics. It goes without saying that a complete quantitative assessment should be based on numerical simulations accounting for the large-angle scattering.