Lawson Criterion
A criterion specifying the product of density and confinement time required to satisfy some power balance condition in a fusion reactor. There are in fact several Lawson criteria, depending on the kind of power balance being used. For fairly realistic assumptions, the acceptable power balance for a reactor requires the product of density (particles per cubic meter) and confinement time (seconds) to approximately exceed 1021 particle seconds m-3).
See also: Fusion, Inertial Confinement.
Subjects: Physics