We consider the symmetry of cylindrical implosions of laser targets with parameters corresponding to experiments proposed for the LIL laser facility at Bordeaux: eight laser beams in octahedrical configuration, delivering a total of 50 kJ of 0.35 µm laser light in 5 ns, impinging on 1.26 mm diameter polystyrene cylindrical shells filled with deuterium at 30 bar and 5.35 mg cm−3; this configuration allows to place diagnostics along the symmetry axis to evaluate directly the uniformity of implosion. Numerical studies have been carried out by using the hydrodynamic computer codes MULTI and CHIC, including one-dimensional, and two-dimensional R–Z and R–θ simulations. Deuterium is compressed into a 1 mm long and 50 µm diameter filament, with density ranging from 2 to 6 g cm−3 and temperatures above 1000 eV. In spite of the reduced numbers of beams, a good symmetry can be achieved with a careful choice of the irradiation pattern. The heat transport smoothing between laser absorption zone and ablation layer plays a fundamental role in the attenuation of residual non-uniformities. Also, it has been found that the radiation transport determines the radial structure of the compressed filament.

A possibility is analyzed to use direct drive cylindrical targets in the fast ignition mode irradiated by beams of nearly relativistic heavy ions with long ranges in matter. The minimum beam energy required to compress the DT fuel in a 1-cm-long target to (ρR)DT = 0.5 g/cm2, ρDT = 100 g/cm3 is found to lie in the range 10–15 MJ. Ignition and axial burn propagation is achieved with a 0.2-ns, 0.4-MJ pulse of 100-GeV heavy ions. Thermonuclear energy gains in the range 50–150 appear to be possible.