The Honest Physics Gates

Three physics questions gate Hyperion's design claims: confinement at these parameters, the magnet and center post, and closing the tritium fuel cycle.

What must be proven

Hyperion is an engineering program. Its numbers are targets derived from models, not measurements from a built machine. Three physics gates stand between the design and a proven breeder, and the program states them plainly because doing so is what makes the rest of the claims trustworthy.

The first is confinement: whether a compact, high-field, negative-triangularity plasma actually confines heat well enough to reach Q_sci 3.076, given that the standard scalings are under-sampled in this corner of parameter space. The second is the magnet and center post: whether 16.84 T peak field can be produced and the center post survive its electromagnetic, thermal, and neutron loads at a limited but usable lifetime (~0.01 fpy). The third is the fuel cycle: whether tritium breeding reaches self-sufficiency, with the TBR 1.8 target's local-versus-net reconciliation still open.

Why stating them builds trust

None of these is claimed as solved. The confinement level is an extrapolation, the center-post life is short and acknowledged, and self-sufficiency at any TBR setting is unproven. Naming the gates, rather than burying them under a single confident performance figure, is the honest posture: the design is promising and specific, and the open questions are specific too. The FOAK first tritium near 2030 is what begins to close them.

• Confinement gate — Q 3.076 at an under-sampled parameter point
• Magnet/center-post gate — 16.84 T and ~0.01 fpy life
• Fuel-cycle gate — self-sufficiency and the TBR 1.8 reconciliation

Construction begins Q2 2027; first-of-a-kind first tritium is targeted near 2030. No hardware net-gain is claimed before FOAK.