Fast ignition without hole boring

A fast-ignitor scheme for inertial confinement Fusion is proposed which wor ks without hole boring. It is shown that a thermonuclear burn wave starts f rom the pellet corona when an adequate amount of energy (typically 10 kJ) i s deposited in the critical layer by a petawatt laser ("coronal ignition"). Burn efficiencies as high as predicted for standard central spark ignition an achieved. In addition, the scheme is surprisingly insensitive to large deviations from spherical precompression symmetry. It may open a new prospe ct for direct drive.