nuclear transmutation happens in the sun fission or fusion.
nuclear transmutation happens in the sun fission or fusion.
what happens in the sun fission or fusion?
nuclear transmutation
each fusion event in the d-t fusion reactor gives off an alpha particle and a fast neutron with around 14 mev of kinetic energy. this is enough energy to cause fission in u-238, and many other transuranic elements as well. this reaction is used in h-bombs to increase the yield of the fusion section by wrapping it in a layer of depleted uranium, which undergoes rapid fission when hit by the neutrons from the fusion bomb inside. the same basic concept can also be used with a fusion reactor like life, using its neutrons to cause fission in a "blanket" of fission fuel. unlike a fission reactor, which burns out its fuel once the u-235 drops below a certain threshold value, these fission–fusion hybrid reactors can continue producing power from the fission fuel as long as the fusion reactor continues to provide neutrons. as the neutrons have high energy, they can potentially cause multiple fission events, leading to the reactor as a whole producing more energy, a concept known as "energy multiplication". even leftover nuclear fuel taken from conventional nuclear reactors will burn in this fashion. this is potentially attractive because this burns off many of the long lived radioisotopes in the process, producing waste that is only mildly radioactive and lacking most long-lived components.
laser inertial fusion energy
especially energetic alpha particles deriving from a nuclear process are produced in the relatively rare (one in a few hundred) nuclear fission process of ternary fission. in this process, three charged particles are produced from the event instead of the normal two, with the smallest of the charged particles most probably (90% probability) being an alpha particle. such alpha particles are termed "long range alphas" since at their typical energy of 16 mev, they are at far higher energy than is ever produced by alpha decay. ternary fission happens in both neutron-induced fission (the nuclear reaction that happens in a nuclear reactor), and also when fissionable and fissile actinides nuclides (i.e., heavy atoms capable of fission) undergo spontaneous fission as a form of radioactive decay. in both induced and spontaneous fission, the higher energies available in heavy nuclei result in long range alphas of higher energy than those from alpha decay.
alpha particle