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Latest News
The RAIN scale: A good intention that falls short
Radiation protection specialists agree that clear communication of radiation risks remains a vexing challenge that cannot be solved solely by finding new ways to convey technical information.
Earlier this year, an article in Nuclear News described a new radiation risk communication tool, known as the Radiation Index, or, RAIN (“Let it RAIN: A new approach to radiation communication,” NN, Jan. 2025, p. 36). The authors of the article created the RAIN scale to improve radiation risk communication to the general public who are not well-versed in important aspects of radiation exposures, including radiation dose quantities, units, and values; associated health consequences; and the benefits derived from radiation exposures.
Ronald C. Kirkpatrick
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 52 | Number 4 | November 2007 | Pages 1075-1078
Technical Paper | Plasma Engineering and Diagnostics | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1639
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper deals with magnetized target fusion (MTF), which proposes to use a magnetic field to reduce the electron thermal conduction and to enhance energy deposition by the charged fusion products. Here we discuss two important aspects of charged particle interaction with the magnetized plasma: 1) the effect of the magnetic field on the stopping power of the plasma and 2) increased charged particle path length within the fusion fuel due to the contortion of the path by the field. The effect of the field on the stopping power depends on the ratios of several plasma parameters, including the Debye length, the Larmor radius, and the relative values of plasma, cyclotron, and collision frequencies. For the MTF regime these parameters are linked due to the need to have adequately magnetized plasma for the reduction of electron thermal conductivity and the need for adequately reduced density to insure that the radiation from the plasma is not too high. We use partially analytic results to show how field gradients shrink the size of the fusion ignition region in the Lindl-Widner diagrams.