A tabletop experimental system has been developed for the study of various collective effects in space-charge-dominated beams. It is based on the recently proposed idea that the dynamic motion of a one-component plasma in a trap can be made physically equivalent to that of a charged-particle beam propagating through a linear transport channel. In this paper, we report on the details of the system and on results of test experiments with a compact Paul trap that is divided into several independent sections. The trap design is carried out in consideration of practical constraints. A Maxwell equation solver is used to calculate the properties of the plasma confinement potential. Experimental observations are compared with numerical data obtained by a tracking simulation code that enables us to approximately predict the three-dimensional trajectories of particles in the system. Low-density N 2 þ plasmas are employed to examine the basic performance of the multi-section trap. The initial temperature, density and lifetime of a confined plasma are estimated from experiments and simulations.

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