Session 9R - Non-Neutral Plasmas II.
POSTER session, Friday morning, November 15
Exhibit Hall - Concourse Level, Adam's Mark
An experiment is being conducted at Los Alamos to explore the possibility of using a Penning trap as a fusion confinement device (see the talk by D.C. Barnes for an overview). The PFX trap achieves electron densities greater than the Brillouin density at the trap center by filling it with a beam of electrons occupying a restricted region of phase space. Cold electrons injected along the magnetic field axis fall into the spherical potential provided by the hyperbolic trap electrodes and magnetic field and form a beam distribution oscillating through the trap center. Recently the trap has been operated with high injection currents; wave activity and intermittency in the electrons scattered from the core are observed in this regime. The experiment can be operated with trapping potentials up to 15kV. Some approaches towards increasing this, such as modifying the electrodes or the magnetic field geometry, will be discussed. Finally, work is proceeding on a gas puff diagnostic of the electron distribution. First measurements from it should be available for this presentation.