Correlation of magnetic moment variation in axisymmetric and multipolar magnetic mirrors

Abstract

This paper contains a computer solution to the equations of motion for more than 105 sets of particle initial conditions which resulted in non-adiabatic behaviour, in the sense that the magnetic moment M4 ~ v⊥2/B varied by more than 5 percent during a single interaction with a magnetic mirror. Particle motion in axisymmetric magnetic mirrors and in the minimum-B configuration formed by the superposition of a multipolar (Ioffe) magnetic field on an axisymmetric mirror field were both investigated. The initial conditions which lead to violation of the 5 percent criterion of adiabaticity can be correlated in terms of a power-law similarity relation if certain dimensionless similarity parameters are used. The same dimensionless similarity parameters and similarity relations, with different values of the numerical constants, can be used to correlate previously obtained experimental data on non-adiabatic losses from magnetic mirror geometries.