ORNL Levitated Toroidal Multipole Program

We are studying confinement of gun-injected and microwave-produced plasmas in a levitated toroidal quadrupole in which internal hoop supports are not present to limit plasma confinement. Electromagnetic levitation is made possible by reducing the 60 Hz skin depth in the copper walls with liquid nitrogen cooling. The cooling also increases the magnetic field lifetime so that an e-folding time of 17 ms was measured after crowbarring. Computations indicate that in a properly designed, larger device, an e-folding time of 100 ms can be reached. Washer-gun hydrogen plasmas and Bostick-type lithium gun plasmas were injected into the levitated quadrupole with typical parameters: B ≥ 3 kG, Te ≈ 3 eV, ni ≈ 109 cm-3, and 1 < Ti < 30 eV. The hydrogen plasma lifetime increased as the probe area decreased, and extrapolated to about 30 times Bohm. The longest observed e-folding lifetime was about 1 ms. Surprisingly long-persisting localized fluctuations in the 300 kHz range appear azimuthally opposite the plasma-producing H or Li gun. Electron-cyclotron resonance (with 40 W at λ = 12 cm) was used to produce hydrogen plasmas with parameters: ni ≈ 1010 cm-3, Te ≈ 30 eV, and τ/τBohm ≈ 30. Density fluctuations (Δn/n) in the region of good field curvature were less than 0.05 and in the region of bad curvature 0.10-0.25. With the removal of the magnetic well (by removing the inner hoop), τ/τBohm and ni each dropped a factor of 4 and Δn/n became greater than 0.25. Recent experiments using 200 W at λ = 3 cm have produced plasmas with higher densities (n > 1011 cm-3 assuming Te ≈ 100 eV), higher temperatures (Te ≈ 100 eV) and longer lifetimes (τ ≈ 80 μs ≈ 40 τBohm) than in the λ = 12 cm experiments. Detailed probe measurements of density and temperature are consistent with models for plasma behaviour based on computed magnetic field plots. Probe data show clear evidence of the changes in heating zones during the variation of the sinusoidal magnetic field and a large obstacle intercepting all flux lines effectively prevents the formation of the plasma. We are also studying a levitated helical hexapole, whose advantages over the quadrupole are a better ratio of connection length to radius of bad curvature and more confinement volume. (author)