The physics of laser driven fusion ignition: status and challenges

While a variety of laboratory-based fusion schemes have been studied for decades, the only fusion scheme yet to demonstrate fusion ignition and significant energy gain has been x-ray-driven (aka indirect-drive) inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Ignition was demonstrated to occur at the thermodynamic conditions where it had long been expected, but the energy required for the implosion system to reach these conditions was more than projected years ago because of the many difficulties in making it work in practice. This proceeding outlines some key steps to obtain ignition and some essential implosion physics, with comparisons to data obtained on the NIF.