Generation and behavior of long-lived field reversing electron rings in strong toroidal fields

This thesis reports experimental work done by the author over a three-year span within the Laboratory of Plasma Studies, Cornell University. The work deals primarily with experiments performed on the Christa machine of the Relativistic Electron Coil Experiment (RECE). This experiment seeks to produce a toroidal magnetic confinement region for plasma trapping using an internal ring of trapped relativistic electrons. This necessitates trapping of sufficient current in a solenoidal mirror geometry such that the ring's self-field exceeds the external mirror field (field-reversal). The goal of this research was the scaling of strong electron rings from the 1/2 MeV RECE-Berta machine up into the 2 to 5 MeV injected electron energy range. The thesis details the work done on the RECE-Christa apparatus which culminated in the successful generation of strongly field-reversing electron rings with millisecond lifetimes. In addition several experiments performed on these rings are described which dealt with various aspects of E-ring trapping and decay