Session KP01 - Poster Session III.
POSTER session, Tuesday afternoon, March 23
Exhibit Hall, GWCC
Open-ended fusion systems have many desirable features. Their main disadvantage: end losses. In the kinetic tandem, with its solenoidal confining field tapering up from each end, plugging is accomplished in an intrinsically MHD-stable magnetic field configuration, one free from the cross-field drifts of non-symmetric fields: Operation is as follows: Ion beams from sources near the ends are compressed, stopped, and reflected part way up the magnetic gradient, forming density peaks. As in the TM, potential peaks arise, plugging ion losses. Electrons are confined by the same potential, in a situation where the field expansion ratio (out to the end wall) exceeds a critical value. In this case, studied by Mirnov and Ryutov [1], trapped electrons are decoupled from the ends and electron-channel losses are orders of magnitude lower than thermal conduction. Analyses and computer simulations of the generation of kinetic tandem plugs will be presented. 1) V. V. Mirnov, D. D. Ryutov, in Itagi Naukii Tekniki Fisika Plasmy, (V.D. Shafranov, Ed.) Moscow, Vol. 8, p. 77 (1988)