Second semiannual progress report of 1972 on plasma research, 1 July--31 December 1972

Technical Report · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1972

OSTI ID:4352699

Plasma research is concerned primarily wiih the problems of creating, containing, and heating high-temperatare plasmas. The research involves studying the physical and electromagnetic properties, the stability, and the radiation of these plasmas. Lowtemperature plasmas are used as analogues to study the stability of high temperaiure plasmas. The high-temperature plasma research facility consists of a 250,000-joule capacitor energystorage bank and related control system. The bank serves either of two magnetic-mirror compression experiments, BME-I and BME-II, which require peak magnetic fields in excess of 50,000 gauss. Currently, a high current relativistic electron beam experiment is planned for BME-I, while BME-II is being used in the study of electron cyclotron resonance heating and modulated electron beam heating of a contact ionization lithium plasma. The low-temperature plasma fucilities are two alkali-metal vapor plasma devices. One of these devices has been used to study an impurity mixing instability, and the other is being used to study the principle of multiple mirror confinement of plasmas. Complementary to the experiments are a wide range of theoretical studies. Computer experiments in one, two, and three dimensions are being used to study both many-body systems and nonlinear systems as initial value problems; this form of simulation has produced a number of results not obtainable analytically and prior to experimental observation. Other theoretical work has included electron cyclotron resonance heating, the dynamics of single particles in toroidal fields or mirrors, and the solution of linear dispersion relations. (auth)

• Research Organization: California Univ., Berkeley (USA). Electronics Research Lab.
• DOE Contract Number: AT(04-3)-34
• NSA Number: NSA-29-017386
• OSTI ID: 4352699
• Report Number(s): UCB--34-P-128-22
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

*MAGNETIC MIRRORS-- ECR HEATING
*PLASMA HEATING-- ECR HEATING
*PLASMA-- RESEARCH PROGRAMS
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
ELECTRON BEAMS
LITHIUM
MODULATION
N70100* --Physics--Controlled Thermonuclear Research-- Confinement & Heating
POWER SUPPLIES