Trapping of Gun-Injected Plasma by a Tokamak
A. W. Leonard, R. N. Dexter, and J. C. Sprott
Department of Physics, University
of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53706
(Received 14 October 1986; accepted 8 June 1987)
ABSTRACT
It has been seen that a plasma produced by a Marshall gun can be injected
into and trapped by a tokamak plasma. This trapping of a gun-injected plasma
is explained in terms of a depolarization current mechanism. A model is
developed that describes the slowing of a plasma beam crossing into the
magnetic field of a tokamak. The slowing down time is shown to go as taus
~ Te^3/2 L^2 / nb ao^2, where nb and Te are the density and temperature
of the plasma beam and ao / L is the pitch of the field lines per unit
length in the direction in which the beam is traveling. Experimental tests
of this model are consistent with the scaling predictions.
Ref: A. W. Leonard, R. N. Dexter, and J. C. Sprott,
Phys. Fluids 30, 2877-2884 (1987)
The complete paper is available in PDF format.
Return to Sprott's Books and Publications.