Particle simulation of the confinement of the plasma blanket in the magnetic mirror

Abstract

A new guiding center particle code Guiding center Mirror Simulation is developed to simulate the evolution and confinement of the axisymmetric plasma blanket in the magnetic mirror field generated by a pair of Helmholtz coils. The simulation results indicate that this plasma blanket maintains its shape throughout evolution, and the steady state distributions of both density and electrostatic potential are obtained. The correlation between the plasma density and the characteristic confinement time is also investigated. Generally, the characteristic confinement time decreases with increasing density. When the density is low enough, it is approximately the pitch angle scattering time of the trapped electrons. When the density increases, it comes to several times of the ion transit time evaluated with the Bohm velocity. These results have the potential for experimental applications.