ALBERT

Notes: The linear growth of axisymmetric (m=0) perturbations for various Bennett pinch equilibria are studied numerically with the ALEGRA-MHD code [A. C. Robinson, C. J. Garasi, T. A. Haill, R. L. Morse, and P. H. Stoltz, Proceedings of the 26th IEEE Conference on Plasma Science (IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 1999), p. 306]. Growth rates are calculated for both skin and diffuse current profiles with varied density and temperature profiles. A destabilizing effect of radially increasing temperature profiles is presented. A factor of three increase in the growth rate over a constant-temperature equilibrium is noted for an equilibrium which is ten times hotter on the edge than at the core. A qualitative explanation is given in terms of the sound speed in the radial region where the mode resides. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Two fluid equilibrium solutions for intense ion beam transport in low-pressure gas or vacuum are derived. The equilibria that are most relevant to beam transport have neutralizing electrons drifting in the same direction as the beam. These solutions require a small net positive charge within the beam channel to support an equilibrium radial electric field to allow the electrons to E×B drift axially. At the extremes of the domain of allowable solutions this electric field approaches zero and complete charge neutrality is achieved. In this case, two solutions are obtained. The first describes ballistic beam transport with complete neutralization of the beam current by the electrons, and the second describes pinched beam transport with no neutralizing electron current. Equilibria between these two extremes exhibit both a small net positive charge within the beam channel and partial current neutralization. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Electron density measurements from previous ion-beam-induced gas ionization experiments [F. C. Young et al., Phys. Plasmas 1, 1700 (1994)] are re-analyzed and compared with a recent theoretical model [B. V. Oliver et al., Phys. Plasmas 3, 3267 (1996)]. Ionization is produced by a 1 MeV, 3.5 kA, 55 ns pulse-duration, proton beam, injected into He, Ne, or Ar gas in the 1 Torr pressure regime. Theoretical and numerical analysis indicates that, after an initial electron population is produced by ion beam impact, ionization is dominated by the background plasma electrons and is proportional to the beam stopping power. The predicted electron density agrees with the measured electron densities within the factor of 2 uncertainty in the measurement. However, in the case of Ar, the theoretically predicted electron densities are systematically greater than the measured values. The assumptions of a Maxwellian distribution for the background electrons and neglect of beam energy loss to discrete excitation and inner shell ionization in the model equations are considered as explanations for the discrepancy. © 1999 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: The effect of backscattered electrons on space-charge limited currents of cylindrical (coaxial) diodes with anode center conductors is studied. The scattered electrons are parametrized by a fractional current density α and fractional energy β of the incident electrons. For bipolar flow, current enhancement factors of 2.5 are calculated for α, β(similar, equals)0.5. Comparison of the model equations to one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations with fully integrated Monte Carlo scattering algorithms demonstrates very good agreement for a range of energies and anode materials. In the absence of backscattering, the bipolar diode impedance decreases for increasing ratio of cathode to anode radius rc/ra for ratios greater than about 20. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: The response of the magnetized plasma in an axisymmetric, plasma-filled, solenoidal magnetic lens, to intense light ion beam injection is studied. The lens plasma fill is modeled as an inertialess, resistive, electron magnetohydrodynamic (EMHD) fluid since characteristic beam times τ satisfy 2π/ωpe,2π/Ωe(very-much-less-than)τ≤2π/Ωi (ωpe is the electron plasma frequency and Ωe,i are the electron, ion gyrofrequencies). When the electron collisionality satisfies νe(very-much-less-than)Ωe, the linear plasma response is determined by whistler wave dynamics. In this case, current neutralization of the beam is reduced on the time scale for whistler wave transit across the beam. The transit time is inversely proportional to the electron density and proportional to the angle of incidence of the beam with respect to the applied solenoidal field. In the collisional regime (νe〉Ωe) the plasma return currents decay on the normal diffusive time scale determined by the conductivity. The analysis is supported by two-and-one-half dimensional hybrid particle-in-cell simulations. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: Particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations are used to study the penetration of magnetic field into plasmas in the electron-magnetohydrodynamic (EMHD) regime. These simulations represent the first definitive verification of EMHD with a PIC code. When ions are immobile, the PIC results reproduce many aspects of fluid treatments of the problem. However, the PIC results show a speed of penetration that is between 10% and 50% slower than predicted by one-dimensional fluid treatments. In addition, the PIC simulations show the formation of vortices in the electron flow behind the EMHD shock front. The size of these vortices is on the order of the collisionless electron skin depth and is closely coupled to the effects of electron inertia. An energy analysis shows that one-half the energy entering the plasma is stored as magnetic field energy while the other half is shared between internal plasma energy (thermal motion and electron vortices) and electron kinetic energy loss from the volume to the boundaries. The amount of internal plasma energy saturates after an initial transient phase so that late in time the rate that magnetic energy increases in the plasma is the same as the rate at which kinetic energy flows out through the boundaries. When ions are mobile it is observed that axial magnetic field penetration is followed by localized thinning in the ion density. The density thinning is produced by the large electrostatic fields that exist inside the electron vortices which act to reduce the space-charge imbalance necessary to support the vortices. This mechanism may play a role during the opening process of a plasma opening switch. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: For typical field-reversed ion ring experiments, an intense ion beam is injected across a plasma-filled magnetic cusp and propagated into a solenoidal field downstream. The characteristic time τ satisfies 2π/Ωe(very-much-less-than)τ≤2π/Ωi and the background plasma can be modeled as an electron magnetohydrodynamic (EMHD) fluid. In the nearly collisionless regime, such that νe(very-much-less-than)Ωe, the plasma response is governed by the whistler mode. The role of the wall boundaries in such experiments to control the charge and current neutralization of the injected beam is considered for axisymmetric ∂/∂θ=0 geometry. It is found that for close enough conducting walls, such that the whistler transit time to the wall is short compared to the beam transit time, effective control of the return currents can be established such that current neutralization can be suppressed while maintaining good charge neutralization (νe is the electron collision frequency and Ωe is the corresponding gyrofrequency).

Notes: The ionization of gas by intense (MeV, kA/cm2) ion beams is investigated for the purpose of obtaining scaling relations for the rate of rise of the electron density, temperature, and conductivity of the resulting plasma. Various gases including He, N, and Ar at pressures of order 1 torr have been studied. The model is local and assumes a drifting Maxwellian electron distribution. In the limit that the beam to gas density ratio is small, the initial stage of ionization occurs on the beam impact ionization time and lasts on the order of a few nanoseconds. Thereafter, ionization of neutrals by the thermal electrons dominates electron production. The electron density does not grow exponentially, but proceeds linearly on a fast time scale tth=U/(vbρ dE/dx) associated with the time taken for the beam to lose energy U via collisional stopping in the gas, where U is the ionization potential of the gas, vb is the beam velocity, ρ is the gas mass density, and dE/dx is the mass stopping power in units of eV cm2/g. This results in a temperature with a slow time dependence and a conductivity with a linear rise time proportional to tth. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.

Notes: The velocity advection, me(ve⋅∇)ve, terms in the momentum equation for electrons in a collisionless plasma are shown to introduce an effective resistivity on the currents drawn from a bounding cathode. This leads to nonlinear diffusive penetration of an externally driven magnetic field, which at time t and height y above the cathode, penetrates to a depth δ obeying the scaling δ∼(t/y)1/3.

Notes: In heavy-ion inertial confinement fusion (HIF), an ion beam is transported several meters through the reactor chamber to the target. This standoff distance mitigates damage to the accelerator from the target explosion. For the high perveance beams and millimeter-scale targets under consideration, the transport method is largely determined by the degree of ion charge and current neutralization in the chamber. This neutralization becomes increasingly difficult as the beam interacts with the ambient chamber environment and strips to higher charge states. Nearly complete neutralization permits neutralized-ballistic transport (main-line HIF transport method), where the ion beam enters the chamber at roughly 3-cm radius and focuses onto the target. In the backup pinched-transport schemes, the beam is first focused outside the chamber before propagating at small radius to the target. With nearly complete charge neutralization, the large beam divergence is contained by a strong magnetic field resulting from roughly 50-kA net current. In assisted-pinched transport, a preformed discharge channel provides the net current and the discharge plasma provides nearly complete charge and current neutralization of the beam. In self-pinched transport, the residual net current results solely from the beam-driven breakdown of the ambient gas. Using hybrid particle-in-cell simulation codes, the behavior of HIF driver-scale beams in these three transport modes is examined. Simulations of neutralized ballistic transport, at a few-mTorr flibe pressure, show excellent neutralization given a preformed or photoionized (from the heated target) plasma. Two- and three-dimensional simulations of assisted-pinch transport in roughly 1-Torr Xe show the importance of attaining 〉1-μs magnetic diffusion time to limit self-field effects and achieve good transport efficiency. For Xe gas pressures ranging from 10–150 mTorr, calculations predict a robust self-magnetic force sufficient for self-pinched transport. The latest simulation results are presented and the important remaining issues for each transport scheme are discussed. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.