THE PERIODICALLY OSCILLATING PLASMA SPHERE

A new method of operating an inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) device is proposed, and its performance is evaluated. The scheme invol ves an oscillating thermal cloud of ions immersed in a bath of electro ns that form a harmonic oscillator potential. The scheme is called the periodically oscillating plasma sphere, and it appears to solve many of the problems that may limit other IEC systems to low gain. A set of self-similar solutions to the ion fluid equations is presented, and p lasma performance is evaluated. Results indicate that performance enha ncement of gridded IEC systems such as the Los Alamos intense neutron source device is possible as well as high-performance operation for lo w-loss systems such as the Penning trap experiment. Finally, a concept ual idea for a massively modular Penning trap reactor is also presente d.