The kinetic stabilizer: Issues and opportunities

Abstract

Five decades of fusion research have resulted in a solid base of understanding of the physics of plasma confinement by magnetic fields, including documentation of the role of the topology of the magnetic fields, i.e., “open” or “closed” field lines, in determining the confinement. Without known exception, closed systems, such as tokamaks, stellarators, or reversed-field pinches, have confinement times that are dominated by turbulence. As a result, to produce net fusion power, closed systems must be so large in size as to raise questions as to their practicality. By contrast, there are examples of open (mirror-based) systems where turbulence, if present at all, was at such low levels as to have a negligible influence on the confinement. Specifically, members of a subset of open systems, those with axisymmetric fields, have demonstrated cross-field transport rates that agree with classical predictions, opening up the possibility of fusion power systems that would be much smaller than their closed-field counterparts. Standing in the way of implementing axisymmetric mirror-based fusion systems is the MHD-unstable nature of their equilibria. The kinetic stabilizer represents a proposed way to overcome this difficulty, one based on theory that has been confirmed in the gas dynamic trap (GDT) axisymmetric mirror experiment in Novosibirsk, Russia. MHD-stabilization in the GDT arises from the presence of a sufficient density of effluent plasma on the outwardly expanding field lines outside the mirrors. However, in those mirror-based fusion systems, such as tandem-mirrors, that would operate at lower plasma collisionalities than the GDT, the effluent plasma density would be too low for this stabilization method to be effective. The kinetic stabilizer overcomes this difficulty by using ion beams injected from ion sources located far out on the expanding field lines beyond the outer mirror. These ion beams, aimed at small angles to the field lines, are compressed, stagnated, and reflected by the inwardly converging field, forming a localized plasma that accomplishes the stabilization. In previous papers, theory was developed and examples were given of mirror and tandem-mirror systems using kinetic stabilizers to achieve fusion-relevant plasma regimes. In this paper, some of the special issues that must be faced in pursuing the kinetic-stabilizer approach to fusion power will be discussed, together with some perceived opportunities for optimizing such systems.