Whistler instability in an electron-cyclotron-resonance-heated, mirror-confined plasma

Abstract

The warm-electron-driven (2 keV) whistler electron microinstability [Phys. Rev. Lett. 59, 1821 (1987)] of the Constance B electron-cyclotron-resonance-heated (ECRH), quadrupole mirror-confined plasma experiment has been studied. Experiments show (i) that the instability comes in fairly regular bursts on axis and continuously in time off axis due to the minimum-B geometry, (ii) a frequency spectrum that is insensitive to changes in the plasma parameters, and (iii) instability-induced power losses which are not greater than 10% of the ECRH power input for the regimes studied. A linear perturbation analysis of the relativistic Vlasov equation together with Maxwell’s equations has been made. Using the ECRH distribution function, a new distribution function well suited for describing ECRH, mirror-confined plasmas, the analysis shows the instability frequency spectrum to be insensitive to changes in cyclotron frequency, temperature, and density, in agreement with experimental results, and only sensitive to changes in ECRH frequency.

Limitation of the ECRIS performance by kinetic plasma instabilities (invited)

“…Such EED is prone to kinetic electron cyclotron instabilities. 10 Kinetic plasma instabilities driven by the anisotropy of the EED have been detected and studied in ECR-heated mirror plasmas 11,12 and recently in a minimum-B ECRIS. 5,13 Each onset of the instability is associated with strong microwave emission from the plasma followed by a burst of electrons ejected into the loss cone and thus escaping the magnetic trap.…”

Whistler waves with angular momentum in space and laboratory plasmas and their counterparts in free space

“…The interaction of energetic electrons with whistler waves via the Doppler-shifted cyclotron resonance has been verified [96]. Temperature anisotropy has been shown to excite whistler waves [97,98].…”

Instability of field-aligned electron–cyclotron waves in a magnetic mirror plasma with anisotropic temperature

“…In the scope of linear kinetic theory as applied to the plasma in a strong homogeneous magnetic field, the instability of these waves is studied in detail both analytically and with the involvement of numerical calculations in Ossakow, Haber & Ott (1972), Cuperman (1981), Garner et al. (1990), Pritchett, Schriver & Ashour-Abdalla (1991), Gary (1993), Devine, Chapman & Eastwood (1995), Gary & Wang (1996), Nishimura, Gary & Li (2002), Gary & Karimabadi (2006), and Lazar, Schlickeiser & Poedts (2009).…”