PLASMA COMPRESSION EXPERIMENTS. II. EFFECTS OF PREIONIZATION AND BIAS FIELDS ON STABILITY AND HEATING

Technical Report · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1961

OSTI ID:4701519

Little, E M; Quinn, W E

BS>A highly ionized deuterium plasma is produced by a fast, low energy capacitor bank coupled directly to the singleturn compression coil of the Scylla III device. The after glow of this preionization discharge, uniformly permeated by a magnetic bias field B/sub O/, forms the initial condition for the application of the main magnetic compression field. The effect of the main compression field on the preionized plasma depends strongly on the B/sub O/ that exists in the plasma. Generally, the present results confirm the previous observations made with either an axial-discharge or an rf preionizer: with -- B/ sub O/, a hot plasma having the usual properties of a second-half-cycle plasma is produced on the first magnetic half cycle; neutron emission occurs only for negative B/sub O/; and little x-ray emission and no neutron emission occurs for positive B/sub O/. However, some additional effects are observed: appreciably higher electron temperatures occur for -- B/sub O/ than those previously observed; T/sub e/ is independent of -- B/sub O/ providing its magnitude exceeds a few kG; a hollow core of trapped -- B/sub O/ persists throughout most of the compression half cycle for intermediate B/sub O/ values; neutron and soft x-ray emissions occur during the compression phase over a relatively wide range of time intervals between the initiation of the preionizer and main compression circuits; and for intermediate values of -- B/sub O/, a rotating flute instability develops. It is similar to that observed during the second half cycle wtth weak preionization. (auth)

• Research Organization: Los Alamos Scientific Lab., N. Mex.
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• NSA Number: NSA-17-029655
• OSTI ID: 4701519
• Report Number(s): LADC-5531
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

CAPACITORS
COILS
CONFIGURATION
CONFINEMENT
DECOMPOSITION
DEUTERIUM
ELECTRIC DISCHARGES
ELECTRONS
EMISSION
ENERGY
FLUTE INSTABILITY
HEATING
IONIZATION
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETIC MIRRORS
MEASURED VALUES
NEUTRONS
PHYSICS
PLASMA
ROTATION
SCYLLA
SCYLLA 3
SHOCK WAVES
STABILITY
STORAGE
TEMPERATURE
THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES
X RADIATION