Session KP01 - Poster Session III.
POSTER session, Tuesday afternoon, March 23
Exhibit Hall, GWCC
The MHD dynamo has been directly measured in a high-temperature laboratory plasma. The MHD dynamo is a nonlinear mechanism by which correlated fluctuations in plasma flow velocity and magnetic field generate or sustain an equilibrium magnetic field. MHD dynamo activity has been proposed as the mechanism which produces the magnetic fields observed in starts, planets, and astrophysical plasmas. In laboratory reversed-field pinch (RFP) plasmas, the MHD dynamo is believed to be the primary mechanism which maintains the magnetic configuration against resistive decay. Plasma flow fluctuations have been quantitatively measured in the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST), a large RFP device, by time-resolved recording of Doppler-shifted impurity line emission. Well-correlated velocity and magnetic fluctuations are found to produce an emf which sustains the RFP magnetic field configuration.
Work supported by U.S.D.O.E.