THE INTERACTION OF AN ELECTRON BEAM WITH A PLASMA IN A MAGNETIC FIELD

Journal Article · Sat Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1961 · Zhur. Tekh. Fiz.

OSTI ID:4832902

Kharchenko, I F; Feinberg, Ya B; Nikolaev, R M; Kornilov, E A; Lutsenko, E I; Pedenko, N S

The interaction of an electron beam with a plasma in a magnetic field is investigated. The electron beam source had an energy of 5 kev and a current of 50 ma. The plasma was located in a low pressure system, 10/sup -2/ to 10/sup -3/ mm of Hg. As the beam emerged from the interaction zone (300 mm in length) its energy and high frequency oscillations were measured. The magnetic field could be raised to 2000 gauss. It was found that without prior modulation the electron beam became unstable. The extent of instability was large (up to 50%), depending on the pressure and the beam current and energy. For a previously modulated beam, f/sub m/ equal to 2530 megahertz, four narrow (a few percent) regions of instability were found to develop at magnetic fields of 410, 880, 1290, and 1815 gauss. These instabilities corresponded to electron-cyclotron frequencies equal to 1/2f/sub m/, fm, 3/2fm, and 2f/sub m/. It is concluded that an electron beam injected into a plasma situated in an inhomogeneous magnetic field may acquire a sufficiently large velocity perpendicular to the magnetic field and beam instabilities cannot be excluded. (TTT)

• Research Organization: Khar'kov Inst. of Physics and Tech., Academy of Sciences, Ukrainian SSR
• NSA Number: NSA-15-031748
• OSTI ID: 4832902
• Journal Information: Zhur. Tekh. Fiz., Journal Name: Zhur. Tekh. Fiz. Vol. Vol: 31
• Country of Publication: Country unknown/Code not available
• Language: Russian

Related Subjects

CYCLOTRONS
ELECTRON BEAMS
ELECTRONS
ENERGY
FREQUENCY
INJECTION
INTERACTIONS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
OSCILLATIONS
PHYSICS
PLASMA
PRESSURE
STABILITY