Closure limits of pulsed-reconnection proton–boron fusion concepts
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Advanced-fuel concepts are usually presented as an operating point and its power balance, seldom as a test of internal consistency. We formalize such a test as a closure hierarchy — an ordered sequence of executable audits, each converting an assumed quantity into one that must be satisfied — and apply it, without self-exemption, to a pulsed-reconnection proton–boron spheromak concept published by the author. Four bounds follow. Closure at the audited point demands 119 MPa of plasma pressure, admitting only β ≈ 1 compact toroids. Moved to lower density and temperature the same requirement becomes 1.3 to 8 s of energy confinement, against the 0.1 to 30 ms demonstrated in those configurations; the trade transfers the deficit rather than removing it. Ignition requires an effective rate coefficient of 1.80 × 10⁻²¹ m³ s⁻¹, while σ(E)v(E) evaluated over 0.1–5 MeV peaks at 1.55 × 10⁻²¹ — a kinematic ceiling, invariant under revision of the cross section though not under a change of fuel mixture, and restored at every mixture by the relativistic correction to cyclotron emission, which also carries the first-wall load past the concept’s own limit. The per-pass burn fraction is of order unity, so alpha ash displaces fuel at fixed pressure and the ledger closes only for an ash residence below 0.045 confinement times, against the 5 to 10 of deuterium–tritium practice. Five escape routes are each excluded by a different conservation law. What the architecture cannot do is ignite: the ignition condition does not contain the drive power.
Author: Agamalov, Oleg
Language: English
Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204437684