Confinement of hot, dense plasmas with β>>1 in nonadiabatic confinement systems

A numerical an anlaytic study of a plasma confinement in magnetic cusp systems is reported. The basic representations of the physical processes which occur in nonadiabatic confinement systems are shown to be consistent with the results of the experiments which have been carried out to date on the confinement of dense plasmas in cusp systems. This analysis is used to examine the confinement of dense plasmas with large values β>>1 in a long cusp confinement system consisting of a system of five connected axisymmetric, MHD-stable confinement systems: a main central confinement system (a linear theta-pinch), two end cells for reducing the end loss of ions (half-cusps), and two auxiliary cells for reducing the energy loss through the electrons (these cells, which expand the outflowing plasma, have the form of halves of Budker--Post adiabatic confinement systems). It is shown that experiments on plasma confinement in a multicell array of this sort could be carried out at the 2MK-200 device at the the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. The expected parameter values are a plasma enthalpy ≅200 kJ, an ion temperature approx. >1 keV, and electron temperature ≥100 eV, and a product ntau≥1012 s/cm3