The synchrotron loss that decides the burner's ledger is not known to one number. The design brackets it across published treatments: 57.9 MW (Trubnikov), 100.1 MW (the AFJ fit used at the reference point), and a 3,038 MW strict optically-thin bound — under which the design never closes.
Synchrotron loss depends on how much emitted radiation is reabsorbed by the plasma. The three treatments span an enormous range: the optically-thin bound assumes no reabsorption and gives 3,038 MW — 15.6x the fusion power — at which point the machine cannot close at any parameter combination. The reference uses the AFJ fit at 100 MW; Trubnikov is lower still.
Publishing the full bracket, including the bound under which the design fails, is the opposite of cherry-picking. It tells the reader exactly how much of the burner's viability rides on reabsorption — which is precisely the quantity no one has measured at these conditions.
| Trubnikov | 57.9 MW |
| AFJ (used) | 100.1 MW |
| Optically-thin bound | 3,038 MW (never closes) |
| Optically-thin vs fusion | 15.6x fusion power |
| Decides | whether the design closes |