ON THE CONTINUOUS PLUG POTENTIAL PROFILE IN A TANDEM MIRROR

The plug potential is formed experimentally, even without high energy sloshing ion population in the end-mirror cells of a tandem mirror. It has been shown analytically that the plug potential can be formed in the present experimental conditions by using the plausible distributio n functions of ions and electrons and a small ionization source. In th is paper, the required ionization rate is estimated for the continuous potential profile around the plug by using Emmert's source. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.