Formation of Multicharged Ions at Quasi-Gasdynamic Plasma Confinement in a Mirror trap

It was shown in [1] that an increase in plasma density Ne in sources of multicharged ions leads to a substantial increase of ion current and improves slightly the ion distribution over charge states. Validity of this statement was verified in experiments with plasma densities not exceeding several units of 1012 cm-3. It was revealed [2] that, for the electron densities exceeding 1013 cm-3, the regime of plasma confinement in a trap changes significantly, the scaling described in [1] is no longer valid, and the quasi-gasdynamic regime of plasma confinement is realized. The plasma confinement time ti in this regime weakly depends on electron density. Consequently, the parameter governing formation of multicharged ions, Neti , grows as the electron density is increased. This means that an increase in plasma density results not only in an increase in the total ion current but also in the shift of the ion charge state distribution towards higher charge states. The present work concerns experimental investigation of the quasi-gasdynamic regime of confinement of a hot plasma in a direct magnetic trap and formation of multicharged ions in this regime. Experiments were conducted on the setup described in detail in [3]. Millimeter wave radiation with maximum power W=130 kW, frequency f=37.5 GHz, and pulse duration up to 1.5 ms was focused along magnetic field lines into a simple mirror trap with mirror ratio 3.4, length 25 cm, and maximum magnetic field 2.5 T. The temperature and density of the electrons were determined from spectral analysis of X-ray bremsstrahlung of plasma in the 2-20 keV range and from the transmission factor of diag-nostic microwave radiation through the plasma. It is concluded that a quasi-gasdynamic regime of plasma confinement is realized. Ion distribution over charge states in the quasi-gasdynamic regime is calculated and the re-sults obtained are compared with experimental data. A strong effect of anisotropy of the electron distribution function over energies on the efficiency of plasma confinement and formation of multicharged ions is considered. Problems of plasma stability in an axisymmetric mirror trap un-der powerful microwave pumping are addressed.