What is inertial confinement fusion?

In inertial confinement fusion, the surface of a deuterium-tritium (DT) microball is ablated so that the inner layers move inward, reaching velocities of about 400 km/s and compressing the cold DT fuel by a factor of  1000-2000 in density and heating the inner vapor to 4-6 keV when its volume is minimal.

When is the first nuclear fusion power plant expected to be built, possibly of the ICF type?

WDK

What is the ARWEN code and what can it be used for?

1. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0188810

Can the BigBarT code be used to calculate opacities and electromagnetic properties of plasmas?

1. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/1qp9-mjn8

Is the EMClaw code a Particle-in-Cell type code?

EMClaw is a code that solves Maxwell's equations with arbitrary sources, but not specifically for collisionless particles as PIC codes do. EMCLaw needs to specify current/charge density as a function of time, space and, probably, the polarization of the medium.