Is it possible for Helium-4 to undergo explosive fusion at high enough temperatures?

Question

Or is it possible to in any wa ignite Helium-4?

Quote sources please! Thanks

Answer 1

yup... why not? any element can fuse (provided that the required temperature and pressure is given)

Answer 2

Helium can be made to fuse in a rather simple Inertial Electrostatic Confinement reactor setup, using no more complicated physics than you find in a television set (literally). However it is inefficient and takes more energy to create the fusion than is released. Therefore it is not a self sustaining reaction.

This is due to the Maxwellian distribution of particle velocities, which is a fancy way of saying that at any given time, only a small proportion of the helium nuclei have a high enough speed to be able to smack into another helium nucleus and fuse.

There are, though, types of reactor other than IECs such as the Tokamak and Z Machine, and in fact there is even a better design of IEC dveloped in part by Robert Bussard which does not have the same Maxwellian distribution of particles and therefore can maintain fusion for longer periods.

However there is currently no man made way of maintaining fusion for any significant period of time. Therefore, while yes it is possible, we cannot currently achieve it. And even if we could, we would likely choose a different source of fuel, Deuterium-Tritium for the Tokamak and I believe Boron for the IEC.

Answer 3

Its possiblem given the right pressure and tempurature. i beilive it would make a m

Answer 4

I'm sorry, I don't have any sources to quote, but I can tell you for sure that helium-4 is very stable and will not ignite at any temperature under normal pressures.  You need high pressure to cause explosive fusion.  Technically, if you could instantaneously increase the temperature of He-4 to well over 1 billion degrees Fahrenheit, the energetic collisions of the atoms could cause fusion, but even then most of the atoms would just scatter.

You need the He-4 to be contained in order to cause a fusion reaction at high temperatures.