Phenomenological modelling of polywell(trademark)/SCIF multi-cusp inertial-electrostatic confinement systems

Technical Report · Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1992

OSTI ID:7013966

Bussard, R W; King, K E

In an earlier paper, a comprehensive study was made of the recirculation and losses of electrons in their flow through simple inverse power-law potential wells bounded by similarly inverse power-law dependent magnetic fields. This study examined electron flow and loss behavior in the simplest approximation invoked to describe Polywell(tm) confinement systems. The importance of this study, and of the present paper, is that the power balance in Polywell(tm) systems is determined entirely by the rate of electron losses; if these are large, then the system can not yield net power. As noted in (I), a large body of work has been undertaken over the past 35 or so years in the study of general cusp confinement of plasmas. Nearly all of this has examined single particle electron (or ion) motion or the motion of particles in neutral plasmas within cusped magnetic systems, generally without internal electric potential fields. Furthermore, almost all of this work on plasmas has been limited to plasmas in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE); non applied to non-neutral systems.

• Research Organization: Energy/Matter Conversion Corp., Manassas, VA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 7013966
• Report Number(s): AD-A-257944/9/XAB; EMC-2-1191-02; CNN: MDA972-90-C-0006
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
CHARGED PARTICLES
TRAPPING
ELECTRONS
LOSSES
ICF DEVICES
USES
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
THERMODYNAMIC MODEL
ELECTRON BEAM FUSION ACCELERATOR
ELECTROSTATICS
IONS
MAGNETIC CONFINEMENT
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
ACCELERATORS
CONFINEMENT
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
FERMIONS
LEPTONS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
PARTICLE BEAM FUSION ACCELERATOR
PARTICLE MODELS
STATISTICAL MODELS
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
664300* - Atomic & Molecular Physics- Collision Phenomena- (1992-)