Plasma containment in a spherical multipole magnetic trap

Abstract

A method of plasma containment by means of spherical multipole (SM) magnetic fields has been developed. The analysis of the confining field geometry has proved that the high-order SM-configurations constitute minimum-B traps with a given number of point cusps instead of linear loss gaps which occur in a standard minimum-B geometry. Injection and trapping of a gun-produced plasma in the SM magnetic trap have been investigated and compared with those in a spindle-cusp trap.