Plasma | |
Temperature and Lifetime Measurements in the SSX Wind Tunnel | |
Gelber, Kaitlin D1  Kaur, Manjit2  | |
[1] Author to whom correspondence should be addressed;Department of Physics and Astronomy, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081, USA | |
关键词: taylor states; magnetized plasma; spectroscopy; plasma lifetime; equilibration rate; e-folding time; | |
DOI : 10.3390/plasma1020020 | |
学科分类:原子、分子光学和等离子物理 | |
来源: mdpi | |
【 摘 要 】
We describe ion and electron temperature measurements in the Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment (SSX) MHD wind tunnel with the goal of understanding limitations on the lifetime of our Taylor-state plasma. A simple model based on the equilibrium eigenvalue and Spitzer resistivity predicted the lifetime satisfactorily during the first phase of the plasma evolution. We measured an average T e along a chord by taking the ratio of theCI I I97.7 nm toCI V155 nm line intensities using a vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) monochromator. We also recorded local measurements of T e and n e using a double Langmuir probe in order to inform our interpretation of the VUV data. Our results indicated that the plasma decayed inductively during a large part of the evolution. Ion Doppler spectroscopy measurements suggested that ions cooled more slowly than would be expected from thermal equilibration with the electrons, which maintained a constant temperature throughout the lifetime of the plasma.
【 授权许可】
CC BY
【 预 览 】
Files | Size | Format | View |
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RO201910256505894ZK.pdf | 4196KB | download |