4 research outputs found
High Energy Electron Confinement in a Magnetic Cusp Configuration
We report experimental results validating the concept that plasma confinement
is enhanced in a magnetic cusp configuration when beta (plasma
pressure/magnetic field pressure) is order of unity. This enhancement is
required for a fusion power reactor based on cusp confinement to be feasible.
The magnetic cusp configuration possesses a critical advantage: the plasma is
stable to large scale perturbations. However, early work indicated that plasma
loss rates in a reactor based on a cusp configuration were too large for net
power production. Grad and others theorized that at high beta a sharp boundary
would form between the plasma and the magnetic field, leading to substantially
smaller loss rates. The current experiment validates this theoretical
conjecture for the first time and represents critical progress toward the
Polywell fusion concept which combines a high beta cusp configuration with an
electrostatic fusion for a compact, economical, power-producing nuclear fusion
reactor.Comment: 12 pages, figures included. 5 movies in Ancillary file