Observation of tilt asymmetries in field-reversed configurations

In recent years, part of the experimental effort on the FRX-C/LSM device has been devoted to understanding why good FRC confinement is observed only in a narrow window of the operating parameter space (fill pressures less than 5 mtorr and bias fields less than 0.8--0.9 kG). The transition from good to bad confinement has been shown for some time to correlate with strong axial shocks, suggesting a formation or stability problem. More recently, FRC magnetic asymmetries have been observed whenever the confinement was poor. To gain further understanding, a 64-coil probe array was built, and data from over 700 discharges were collected during the summer of 1989. We summarize in this paper the results of a preliminary analysis of these data. 5 refs., 4 figs