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Periodic pulling of the drift instability in a thermal plasma

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6538532

The primary objective of this thesis is to show that a mode of oscillation in a plasma can be represented by a van der Pol oscillator. The results of an experiment performed on a drift wave in a Q-machine are interpreted in terms of a mechanism developed by Lashinsky. The mechanism, called periodic pulling, predicts a specific kind of spectrum for certain experimental conditions when a van der Pol oscillator is perturbed by a small signal. The observed spectrum, along with other observations, lends credence to the van der Pol oscillator model of a plasma mode.

Research Organization:
Maryland Univ., College Park (USA). Inst. for Fluid Dynamics and Applied Mathematics
OSTI ID:
6538532
Report Number(s):
DOE/NBM-7008504; TN-BN-642; ON: DE87008504
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English