Linear Pinch Equilibrium of Non-Neutral Plasma Revisited: Phenomenological Consequences of a Numerical Accuracy Problem

Abstract

Weibel in 1959 under considerations of a collisionless non-neutral cylindrical plasma column studied a linear pinch confinement equilibrium. As reported here, due to non-linearity of the ordinary differential equations obtained for the electrostatic and magnetostatic fields is possible to demonstrate that the confining features previously obtained are extremely dependent on the initial conditions, and the arrangement of two parameters (β - the ratio between ion and electron mass; M/KT - ratio between relativistic rest energy associated with the pair electron-ion and thermal energy kT ) related to the plasma column characteristics. We investigated in this paper the plasma column behavior (confining or non-confining) under modifications of that set of parameters. We detected a set of parameters values that imposes a confining configuration with an electronic skin effect on the plasma column, not yet reported or discussed in the literature.<br /><br />