Inertial fusion sciences and applications 99 : state of the art 1999

The first international conférence on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (IFSA 99) was held 12-17 September 1999 at Université Bordeaux-1 under a Memorandum of Agreement between the University of California, LULI-CNRS, and Osaka University. This conférence provided a forum for 354 scientists and engineers, coming from 19 countries, to meet and exchange information on the large variety of inertial fusion topics including basic sciences and technical applications. IFSA 99 is intended to be the first of a series that will bring the diverse parts of the community together so that the common vision for the inertial fusion energy (IFE) goal will come into better focus while learning how to exploit the advances in capabilities for nearer terni progress in basic sciences and in technological applications. Following the recommendation of the scientific advisory board and the decision of the three co-chairs of IFSA, the next conférence will be held in Japan in September 2001.

Fusion ignition and high gain in the laboratory have long been the goal of the inertial fusion community. The Laser megajoule (LMJ) in France and the National ignition facility (NIF) in the United States are under construction to achieve these goals within the coming decade. The achievement of these goals would demonstrate the scientific feasibility of IFE and would provide the target physics basis for engineering development of IFE as a power source.

The scientific quest to achieve these goals has opened the door to new ways to create and study the physics of materials at extremely high temperature and density, yielding the field of high energy density. As an example and for the first time, astrophysicists are beginning to be able to create these extreme conditions in controlled laboratory experiments where phenomena occurring in a grand scale in the universe may be studied in small experiments on earth.

The first international conference on Inertial Fusion Sciences and Applications (IFSA 99) was organized by Michael Campbell, LLNL (USA), Arnold Migus, LULI (France), and Kunioki Mima, ILE (Japan), under the patronage of the "Haut-commissaire à l'énergie atomique".