PPT Slide
Stellarator confinement of pair plasmas
- A stellarator is well suited as a confinement device for p-e plasmas:
- Positrons and electrons are confined simultaneously in same volume
- Highly energetic particles can be confined even at moderate magnetic field strengths (keV particles confined at 0.1 T)
- Steady state, with no need for internal currents
- In order to create a laboratory pair plasma, we need to:
- Develop an efficient injection mechanism for the positrons
- Demonstrate good confinement (of the positrons, at least)
- Available low energy positron sources are weak (at most 1010 positrons/sec at 3 eV)
- Fusion stellarator plasmas have been plagued by ‘bad orbit’ losses and turbulent transport - should be avoided