FULLY IONIZED PINCH COLLAPSE

Journal Article · Thu Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1960 · Z. Naturforsch

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1515/zna-1960-1203· OSTI ID:4049456

Hain, K; Hain, G; Roberts, K V; Roberts, S J; Koppendorfer, W

A fully ionized plasma is assumed. To this plasma cylindrically- symmetric magnetic fields are applied thus causing a pinch collapse. The plasma is treated in hydromagnetic approximation, including electric and thermal conductivity. Separate temperatures are assigned to the electrons and ions. Two schemes are developed for solving numerically the resulting system of six partial differential equations: the explicit scheme for rather fast pinches, where a numerically stability requirement causes the timestep to be bounded by the characteristics given by the Alfwen speed, and an implicit scheme, which consists essentially in converting the momentum equation into a second-order difference equation with coefficients determined by iteration; here there is no such restriction on the timestep. These schemes were made to work on the U.K.A.E.A. IBM 704 and IBM 709. A run is described in which the initial state was one with uniform density, temperature, and B/sup z/ field. The boundary temperatures were assumed to remain constant, while the magnetic fields at the boundary were determined by the circuits for the j/sup z/ and j/sup THETA / currents. The results of the computations are in good agreement with experimental results obtained at the Technische Hochschule Munchen by one of the authors (Koppendorfer). The whole program is a joint effont between A.E.R.E. Harwell and the Max-Planck-Institut, intended to discover by comparison with experiments how good the hydromagnetic approximations are. If the agreement is satisfactory (eventually using a generalized program which includes neutral gas) it should be possible to design experiments so that specified field configurations are set up. (auth)

• Research Organization: Max-Planck-Institut fur Physik und Astrophysik, Munich
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• NSA Number: NSA-15-015166
• OSTI ID: 4049456
• Journal Information: Z. Naturforsch, Journal Name: Z. Naturforsch Vol. Vol: 15a
• Country of Publication: Country unknown/Code not available
• Language: English

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