Self Colliding Beams ("Migma") and Controlled Fusion

nuclei in the Intersecting Storage Rings at CERN. It may be for this reason that the idea of using colliding beam technology as a means of achieving fusion has not reappeared until just recently. The idea of using colliding beams for fusion is nearly as old as is the interest in fusion as a source of power, but the problems of low reaction rate and high coulomb scattering initially seemed insurmountable. This work describes recent work done at Fusion Energy Corporation which attempts to overcome these problems. Before turning to our own work, let us examine the well know facts about CERN ISR in a manner suggesting comparision with traditional plasma thermonuclear machines. The confinement time of the ISR is 235 days, that is, a beam stored in the morning has decreased by less than a percent in intensity by evening. The parameter, n7, density times confinement time can easily be found to be about 10" cmm3 set compared with present plasma values of no better than lO'","Lawson Criterion" (see below) values of 10'4, and values of 10" required when the Lawson Criterion is corrected by a nlnnber of realistic considerations (see below). Another parameter of interest to plasma researchers is !i, = Sn nkT/??, which is the ratio of kinetic energy density to magnetic energy density. In magnetically confined plasmas, this ratio must be less than 1. At ISR the ratio