Sustainment and Additional Heating of High Beta Field Reversed Configuration Plasmas

Abstract. In additional heating experiment of translated theta-pinch produced Field-Reversed-Configuration (FRC) plasma with density of 5×1019 m3 and pressure balance temperature of 100 by hydrogen neutral beam, only electron is observed to be heated; electron and ion temperature is controlled independently for the first time in the FRC plasma. So far, confinement times of the FRC plasma were known to depend approximately on eV 10keV R 2 ρ io ( R; major radius, ρ io; ion gyro radius) and dependence on electron temperature was small, which is confirmed by the present experiment. The FRC plasma is also produced and sustained for longer than by a rotating magnetic field (RMF) in a metal confinement chamber. Though the performance of the present RMF produced FRC plasma is low, or the density and the temperature are lower than 4ms 5×1017 m3 and respectively, and can be sustained in quartz chamber. But future high temperature FRC plasma should be sustained in metal chamber. The efficiency of the FRC plasma production is higher for higher RMF frequency