Lawson criterion
Noun
Meaning
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Lawson criterion
(physics) A necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the achievement of sustained release of energy from a nuclear fusion reactor; that the heating effect of the reaction should exceed the losses.
Related terms
Examples
According to the Lawson criterion, the amount of energy needed to heat the D-T fuel to break-even conditions at ambient pressure is perhaps 100 times greater than the energy needed to compress it to a pressure that would deliver the same rate of fusion.
In inertial confinement, both stellar densities and temperatures are exceeded to compensate for the shortcomings of the third parameter of the Lawson criterion, ICF's very short confinement time.
This is also the temperature at which the value of the triple product nTτ required for ignition is a minimum, since that required value is inversely proportional to /T 2 (see Lawson criterion ).