A laboratory produced extremely large beta plasma

This paper discusses laboratory production of an extremely large-beta (β∼103) plasma, termed ELB plasma, over an extended volume of 0.5 m3. The plasma β can be varied from <1 to values as large as 103, thereby allowing us to study physical processes through a large range of β. Desired β values are achieved by tailoring the ambient magnetic field by compensating fields over time scales far less than the plasma confinement time. We observe that during this compensation, the magnetic field penetration from the wall to the plasma occurs at Whistler speed. The Whistler mode is accompanied by excitation of electrostatic ion wave. We have shown that the diamagnetism of the ELB plasma is considerably modified essentially through the effect of finiteness of electron Larmor radius (rLe) in the force equilibrium. Application of these results to the space plasma is pointed out