Attainment of high plasma pressures by a large number of channeled pinch discharges intersecting in one point
- Department of Physics, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, Nevada 89557 (United States)
If a large number of laser- or charged particle beam-channeled gas embedded Z-pinch discharges, with alternating directions of the currents for adjacent pinch discharges, are made to intersect in one point, one obtains a quasispherical plasma configuration likely to be stable against the {ital m}=1 kink instability. Because gas-embedded Z-pinch discharges are diffuse, they should also be stable against the {ital m}=0 sausage instability and all other higher than {ital m}=1 instabilities. In the proposed plasma configuration the pressure falls off radially with an 1/{ital r}{sup 2} dependence. If, for example, the plasma pressure at the periphery of a 25 cm plasma sphere is 100 atm{approx_equal}10{sup 8} dyn/cm{sup 2}, corresponding to a magnetic field of {approximately}5{times}10{sup 4} G, the plasma pressure at a radius of {approximately}0.3 cm from the center of the sphere would have risen to 700000 atm, with the magnetic field at this distance equal to {approximately}4{times}10{sup 6} G. At a thermonuclear temperature of {approximately}10{sup 9} K, the plasma particle number density at this distance would be {approximately}3{times}10{sup 18} cm{sup -3}, with a correspondingly high thermonuclear reaction rate. The feasibility of such a plasma configuration for the controlled release of thermonuclear energy then only depends on the radial heat conduction losses in the presence of a strong perpendicular magnetic field. It appears that these losses can be made smaller than the heat released by the thermonuclear reaction. {copyright} {ital 1996 American Institute of Physics.}
- OSTI ID:
- 253485
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 3, Issue 1; Other Information: PBD: Jan 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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