Abstract
The cross-magnetic field heat transport in a Mg+ plasma confined in a Penning-Malmberg trap is found to be dominated by novel long-range collisions. The measurement uses two lasers: a strong cooling beam creates a controlled temperature gradient in the plasma and a weak probe beam measures the ion temperature evolution. The temperature gradient drives a heat flux which dominates the measured temperature evolution, with corrections due to small external heating terms. Classical theory of collisional heat conductivity considers only ion-ion collisions with collisionality ν and impact parameter ρ<rc, giving thermal diffusivity χc∝νrc2. Here, long-range collisions with impact parameter rc<ρ<λD can dominate the heat transport, giving χL≃(1/2)νλD2. Initial measurements taken for a plasma with temperature T≃.02 eV and density n≃5×107 cm−3 at B=4 T show enhanced heat transport consistent with thermal diffusion dominated by these long-range collisions.
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