An. Aleynikov et al., ON THE INTERPRETATION OF DIAMAGNETIC LOOP MEASUREMENTS FOR A CURRENT-CARRYING PLASMA-COLUMN IN A CONDUCTING CHAMBER, Physics of plasmas, 1(5), 1994, pp. 1117-1122
An expression is derived for the signal of a magnetic loop encircling
a plasma column inside a conducting chamber with nonuniform current di
stribution over the plasma cross section. The plasma with radius much
smaller than the length of the column is assumed to be in a quasistati
onary force-balanced state. The ratio of the paramagnetic component to
the diamagnetic component of the signal is shown to be independent of
the loop radius. Both components increase as the loop radius decrease
s from the chamber radius to the plasma radius. From the derived expre
ssions, the paramagnetic component of the signal is calculated numeric
ally for several current distributions including those of interest for
the experiments. At a given total current, the paramagnetic component
of the signal may vary considerably, which generally has to be taken
into account in interpreting experimental data. The results of the cal
culations are used to process the data obtained in the experiments on
the SPIN plasma device [Knyazev et al., ''Characteristics of plasma pr
oduced by a linear discharge in the metal chamber of the SPIN device,'
' J. Tech. Phys. 63, 49 (1993) (in Russian)].