RESEARCH IN HIGH TEMPERATURE PLASMA.
Abstract
Extensive ion source research for the adiabatic mirror-cusp (AMC) machine injection system has led to excellent focus of ion beams of 200 mA. To improve the accelerator and enable it to handle these higher currents a major power supply modification is in progress which will reduce the impedance of the voltage supply to the acceleration stages. The beam sink has been completed and vacuum pressures of 2 x 10 to the 10th power torr achieved. Aggravating delays have continued in the shop of the subcontractor producing the axial magnetic field coils, but a booster coil has been successfully completed and a mirror coil three-quarters finished. Following favorable results of calculations, an experiment is being prepared to test a containment system involving the use of electrostatic fields for the suppression of plasma losses through magnetic cusps. The scanning solid-state detector and the retarding grid energy analyzer have been completed and bench tested. Exact particle orbits in the AMC field have been followed on a computer for times as long as a millisecond and the results predict adiabatic containment of 250-keV ions even with the low field operation. Good progress is being made in the development of the hierarchy of nonlinear Fokker-Planck equations for the description of stability and containment in the AMC experiment. The favorable conclusions regarding the slowing down reaction probabilities have been shown to be unaffected by the inclusion of nuclear elastic scattering and the reaction product velocity distributions. A preliminary run has been made with a computer experiment which simulates a high current ion source. Preparations are being made to study turbulent heating in the energetic arc. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1967
- Accession Number
- AD0813292
Entities
Organizations
- Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings