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- Title
Massive, long-lived electrostatic potentials in a rotating mirror plasma.
- Authors
Kolmes, E. J.; Ochs, I. E.; Rax, J.-M.; Fisch, N. J.
- Abstract
Hot plasma is highly conductive in the direction parallel to a magnetic field. This often means that the electrical potential will be nearly constant along any given field line. When this is the case, the cross-field voltage drops in open-field-line magnetic confinement devices are limited by the tolerances of the solid materials wherever the field lines impinge on the plasma-facing components. To circumvent this voltage limitation, it is proposed to arrange large voltage drops in the interior of a device, but coexist with much smaller drops on the boundaries. To avoid prohibitively large dissipation requires both preventing substantial drift-flow shear within flux surfaces and preventing large parallel electric fields from driving large parallel currents. It is demonstrated here that both requirements can be met simultaneously, which opens up the possibility for magnetized plasma tolerating steady-state voltage drops far larger than what might be tolerated in material media. In open-field-line magnetic plasma traps, the attainable cross-field voltage drops are limited by the tolerances of the solid materials of the vacuum vessel. Here, the authors demonstrate the possibility of equilibria that isolate large voltage drops to the interior of the plasma, circumventing this limit.
- Subjects
MAGNETIC confinement; MAGNETIC traps; HIGH temperature plasmas; MAGNETIC devices; ELECTRIC fields; ELECTROSTATICS
- Publication
Nature Communications, 2024, Vol 15, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2041-1723
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/s41467-024-47386-2