Drift-Resonant Fluctuations Observed in CTX

The Collisionless Terrella Experiment, or CTX, consists of a large vacuum vessel, a strong electromagnet, and a microwave power source, used to create and heat a plasma confined to a dipole magnetic field. Electron-cyclotron-resonance-heating, ECRH, is used to create an "artificial" radiation belt.

Below, a time-frequency spectrogram illustrates the complex waves that are excited in CTX. When the wave-spectrum satisfies the conditions for chaos, energetic electrons are ejected radially from the dipole magnetic trap.