Estimate the minimum total kinetic energy of the ^2 H and ^3 H nuclei necessary to allow the f

Estimate the minimum total kinetic energy of the ^2 H and ...

Key Concepts

Coulomb Barrier

This is the energy barrier due to the electrostatic repulsion between two positively charged nuclei. In the context of nuclear fusion, the nuclei must possess sufficient kinetic energy to overcome this barrier so that the short-range attractive nuclear force can act to cause fusion.

Reaction Threshold Energy

This concept refers to the minimum kinetic energy required for the colliding nuclei to initiate a fusion reaction. It takes into account the energy needed to overcome repulsive forces, such as the Coulomb barrier, thereby determining the conditions under which fusion can occur.

Kinetic Energy in Nuclear Collisions

In fusion reactions, the kinetic energy of the incoming nuclei in the center-of-mass frame is critical. It determines whether the nuclei have enough energy to approach each other closely enough to allow the nuclear forces to overcome the Coulomb repulsion and fuse them into a heavier nucleus.

Transcript

00:01 For this question, we're looking at what is the energy that is required for a efficient process to occur between deuterium and tritium, which i have stated here.

00:17 On the left is deuterium, on the right is the tritium.

00:21 And we're making an approximation that when these nucleides touch, just barely touch, then these reaction is allowed to take place this is our assumption and so what we need to find is what is the required what is the potential energy of the system when it this occurs right when the two nuclei are just touching so what is the potential energy and this potential energy will be the kinetic energy that's required by the system in order to convert this kinetic energy all the way to potential energy to allow them to just barely touch all right and to get the potential energy we will need to find what is the distance between the centers of these two charges or these two nuclei to get this distance we will need to find what is the radii of the three as well as for the dutere what is the radius and then we just need to sum the radius together so for the radius of any nucleic we can approximate them to be r knot applied by the nucleon number the power of one third where r not is a constant constant of 1 .2 fermi meters is actually just 10 to power minus 15 meters okay, so first off for deuterium, the valiars is r not the power of times two to the power of water.

02:20 This gives us about 1 .51.

02:26 For the other for tritium, do the same thing.

02:33 Get 1 .73.

02:42 Now we have the distance between the two nucleides.

02:48 And that will be distance is 1 .51 plus 1 .7 3.

02:57 And this gives us 3 .24 firm meetings.

03:07 Now last one only, we need to find the potential energy...

Please give Ace some feedback