In turbulent heating experiments the electrical resistivity is anomalously large, once turbulence has developed. But before turbulent levels build up in a dense, collisionless plasma, the high conductivity can cause a skin effect that impedes current penetration. We find that this skin effect has an influence on the onset of current-driven instabilities and on the ultimate heating. Low levels of residual turbulence before heating are found to play a role in the rate of current penetration.In this experiment, intense small-scale current-driven instabilities grow to nonlinear levels, producing a rapid heating of ions and electrons to kilovolt temperatures. The electron drift velocity exceeds the ion sound speed and the ion thermal speed, but is always smaller than the electron thermal speed. The apparatus has been described in the literature. 1 " 3 Two conical-pinch guns inject plasma through hollow electrodes into either end of a 2:1 magnetic mirror field of 3000 G, in a vacuum chamber 40 cm in diameter and 200 cm long. The plasma column, 8 cm in diameter and 180 cm long, reaches a maximum density of 8xl0 13 cm" 3 about 30 jusec after injection. Turbulent heating is accomplished by applying a 50-200-kV pulse between the hollow electrodes, driving currents up to 13 000 A along the magnetic field. Voltage 100, PLASMA CURRENT 3 en 2 *1 O 1 > n i -\ HARD X-RAY I SIGNAL N K . i , i 0 1 2 3 4 TIME (JSEC FIG. 1. Voltage, current, and hard x-ray signals. Instability begins at a and ends at c. and current wave forms for typical operation are shown in Fig. 1. Because of series inductance, the initial current is zero, then rises sinusoidally until the electron-drift velocity eventually exceeds the threshold for current-driven instabilities, indicated by dotted line a. This circuit connection gives the "constant-current" mode of operation referred to in computer simulation experiments, 3 in which changes in plasma resistivity produce voltage fluctuations, with little influence on the current. The plasma column inductance of 0.6 MH, which remains nearly constant during the rise and fall of turbulence, combined with the external inductance of 3 p.H gives an oscillation frequency of 300 kHz.At the instant the heating current pulse is applied, the plasma column has an electron density n e between (2 and 8)xl0 13 cm" 3 , and a conductivity a between 10 and 100 mho/m, depending upon settings. 3 ' 4 The conductivity versus time is shown in Fig. 2. Curves A, B and A', B f are 150, SATURATION ;100h O I 5 > 50 O D Q Z o o 60 40 TIME |JSEC FIG. 2. Conductivity versus time. Curves A, B and A'', B' are from data of an rf conductivity probe. Curve C is from analysis of voltage and current traces, removing inductive effects. A: a 0 «50 mho/m. B: a 0 «10 mho/m. 499