166 research outputs found
Introduction to the Physics of Gyrotrons
As unique sources of coherent high-power, microwave, and millimeter-wave radiation, gyrotrons are an essential part of the hunt for controlled fusion. Presently, gyrotrons are actively used for electron cyclotron resonance plasma heating and current drive in various controlled fusion reactors. These sources have been under development in many countries for more than forty years. In spite of their widespread use, however, there is as yet no single book to introduce non-specialists to this vital field.Now Gregory S. Nusinovich, an early pioneer of the gyrotron and widely regarded today as the world's leading authority on the subject, explains the fundamental physical principles upon which gyrotrons and related devices operate. Nusinovich first sets forth some "rules of thumb" that allow readers to understand gyrotron operation in simple terms. He then explores the fundamentals of the general theory of gyrotrons and offers an overview of the various types of gyro-devices, including gyromonotrons, gyroklystrons, gyro-traveling-wave tubes, and gyrotwystrons. He explains not only the theory, linear and nonlinear, but also the practical challenges that users of such devices face. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students as well as to those who develop gyrotrons or who use them in various applications. It should also appeal to plasma physicists interested in charged-particle dynamics, as well as to applied physicists needing to know more about micro- and millimeter-wave technologies
Heating of Micro-protrusions in Accelerating Structures
The thermal and field emission of electrons from protrusions on metal
surfaces is a possible limiting factor on the performance and operation of
high-gradient room temperature accelerator structures. We present here the
results of extensive numerical simulations of electrical and thermal behavior
of protrusions. We unify the thermal and field emission in the same numerical
framework, describe bounds for the emission current and geometric enhancement,
then we calculate the Nottingham and Joule heating terms and solve the heat
equation to characterize the thermal evolution of emitters under RF electric
field. Our findings suggest that, heating is entirely due to the Nottingham
effect, that thermal runaway scenarios are not likely, and that high RF
frequency causes smaller swings in temperature and cooler tips. We build a
phenomenological model to account for the effect of space charge and show that
space charge eliminates the possibility of tip melting, although near melting
temperatures reached.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure
High power operation of an X-band gyrotwistron
We report the first experimental verification of a gyrotwistron amplifier. The device utilized a single 9.858 GHz, TE011 cavity, a heavily attenuated drift tube, and a long tapered output waveguide section. With a 440 kV, 200-245 A, 1 μs electron beam and a sharply tapered axial magnetic field, peak powers above 21 MW were achieved with a gain near 24 dB. Performance was limited by competition from a fundamental TE11 mode. A multimode code was developed to analyze this system, and simulations were in good agreement with the experiment
Remote Detection of Radioactive Material using High-Power Pulsed Electromagnetic Radiation
Remote detection of radioactive materials is impossible when the measurement location is far from the radioactive source such that the leakage of high-energy photons or electrons from the source cannot be measured. Current technologies are less effective in this respect because they only allow the detection at distances to which the high-energy photons or electrons can reach the detector. Here we demonstrate an experimental method for remote detection of radioactive materials by inducing plasma breakdown with the high-power pulsed electromagnetic waves. Measurements of the plasma formation time and its dispersion lead to enhanced detection sensitivity compared to the theoretically predicted one based only on the plasma on and off phenomena. We show that lower power of the incident electromagnetic wave is sufficient for plasma breakdown in atmospheric-pressure air and the elimination of the statistical distribution is possible in the presence of radioactive material.ope
Propagation of gamma rays and production of free electrons in air
A new concept of remote detection of concealed radioactive materials has been
recently proposed \cite{Gr.Nusin.2010}-\cite{NusinSprangle}. It is based on the
breakdown in air at the focal point of a high-power beam of electromagnetic
waves produced by a THz gyrotron. To initiate the avalanche breakdown, seed
free electrons should be present in this focal region during the
electromagnetic pulse. This paper is devoted to the analysis of production of
free electrons by gamma rays leaking from radioactive materials. Within a
hundred meters from the radiation source, the fluctuating free electrons appear
with the rate that may exceed significantly the natural background ionization
rate. During the gyrotron pulse of about 10 microsecond length, such electrons
may seed the electric breakdown and create sufficiently dense plasma at the
focal region to be detected as an unambiguous effect of the concealed
radioactive material.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figure
Multi-transmission-line-beam interactive system
We construct here a Lagrangian field formulation for a system consisting of
an electron beam interacting with a slow-wave structure modeled by a possibly
non-uniform multiple transmission line (MTL). In the case of a single line we
recover the linear model of a traveling wave tube (TWT) due to J.R. Pierce.
Since a properly chosen MTL can approximate a real waveguide structure with any
desired accuracy, the proposed model can be used in particular for design
optimization. Furthermore, the Lagrangian formulation provides for: (i) a clear
identification of the mathematical source of amplification, (ii) exact
expressions for the conserved energy and its flux distributions obtained from
the Noether theorem. In the case of uniform MTLs we carry out an exhaustive
analysis of eigenmodes and find sharp conditions on the parameters of the
system to provide for amplifying regimes
On the Nature of Pulsar Radio Emission
A theory of pulsar radio emission generation, in which the observed waves are
produced directly by maser-type plasma instabilities operating at the anomalous
cyclotron-Cherenkov resonance and the Cherenkov-drift resonance , is capable of explaining the main
observational characteristics of pulsar radio emission. The instabilities are
due to the interaction of the fast particles from the primary beam and the tail
of the distribution with the normal modes of a strongly magnetized
one-dimensional electron-positron plasma. The waves emitted at these resonances
are vacuum-like, electromagnetic waves that may leave the magnetosphere
directly. In this model, the cyclotron-Cherenkov instability is responsible for
core emission pattern and the Cherenkov-drift instability produces conal
emission. The conditions for the development of the cyclotron-Cherenkov
instability are satisfied for both typical and millisecond pulsars provided
that the streaming energy of the bulk plasma is not very high . In a typical pulsar the cyclotron-Cherenkov and Cherenkov-drift resonances
occur in the outer parts of magnetosphere at . This
theory can account for various aspects of pulsar phenomenology including the
morphology of the pulses, their polarization properties and their spectral
behavior. We propose several observational tests for the theory. The most
prominent prediction are the high altitudes of the emission region and the
linear polarization of conal emission in the plane orthogonal to the local
osculating plane of the magnetic field.Comment: 39 pages, 10 figure
Cold testing of quasi-optical mode converters using a generator for non-rotating high-order gyrotron modes
In this paper, we test the performance of a quasi-optical, internal-gyrotron mode converter. When cold testing mode converters, a rotating higher-order mode is commonly used. However, this requires a nontrivial design and precise alignment. We thus propose a new technique for testing gyrotron mode converters by using a simple, non-rotating, higher-order mode generator. We demonstrate the feasibility of this technique for a W-band gyrotron quasi-optical mode converter by examining the excitation of a TE6,2 mode from a non-rotating mode generator. Our results demonstrate that this new cold-test scheme is an easy and efficient method for verifying the performance of quasi-optical mode converters.open0
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