Studies of Plasma Heated in a Fast-Rising Axial Magnetic Field (Scylla)

Field reversed configurations

“…Evidence for a high beta closed field line configuration comes from various measurements. First, internal probes have revealed the existence of a reversed magnetic field [76,77,95,99,100,113] in early experiments. More recently, with reduced plasma pressure and larger dimensions, such measurements were extended through the entire FRC equilibrium phase [130,132,137].…”

“…The experiments of Table II The evolution of the experiments just described parallels an evolution of the main physics issues from heating in the early days to confinement in present experiments. In the USA, the early theta pinch experiments at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) [3,[71][72][73][74][75] and the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL) [76][77][78][79][80][81][82] focused on the resistive annihilation of the reversed magnetic field which produced enhanced heating and neutron yields. In Europe, the potential merit of closed-field lines drew early attention [4], and numerous experiments at Culham [83][84][85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92], Jiilich [93][94][95][96][97][98] and Garching [99][100][101] focused on the details of the field reversed configuration.…”

Theta pinch discharge designed for emission spectrochemical analysis: design and electrical characterization

“…Emission observed from these plasmas ranges from the infrared to the X-ray region, with neutron emission also possible under the appropriate conditions. In fusion studies, it has been observed that one of the major mechanisms for energy loss is radiation by impurities ablated from the discharge vessel walls and from other materials placed within the discharge vessel (10,11). While this effect is undesirable in fusion research, it may be of analytical utility for emission analysis of solid samples placed within the discharge vessel.…”

“…The cylindrical coils used for fusion research typically had dimensions on the order of 1 m in length and 10 cm in diameter (8,10,19,20). Insulating discharge vessels, fitting within the cylindrical coil, were generally operated between 0.1 mtorr and 1 torr.…”

Measurements on an Experimental Induction Plasma Accelerator

“…An early description and analysis of continuously driven, induction, or electrodeless discharges was given by Thomson (l), 1 and the theory and use of such discharges have received frequent attention since Thomson's publication (2)(3)(4). Transient inductive discharges have recently been given considerable study in the controlled thermonuclear reaction effort as a means of both generating and containing a very high temperature plasma (5)(6)(7)(8). In these experiments ionized gas is both heated and radially accelerated by the induced electromagnetic field within cylindrical coils.…”