Keywords

radial temperature profile, pure-electron plasma, equilibrum calculations, Malmberg-Penning trap

Abstract

In 1992, Eggleston et al. [D. L. Eggleston et al., Phys. Fluids B 4, 3432 (1992)] reported on a technique for measuring the radial temperature profile in a pure-electron plasma confined in a Malmberg-Penning trap by partially dumping the plasma onto a charge collector at the end of the trap. For short plasmas and short confining rings, the assumptions in their paper are violated and a more general calculation is needed. This paper presents a variation of the standard equilibrium calculation to find the temperature profile of a pure-electron plasma. Eggleston's shortcut "evaporation" temperature method is found to require a correction factor that can be calculated using methods described in this paper. For typical conditions, the evaporation method overstates the actual temperature by a factor ranging from 1.1 to 1.5 or more, depending on the plasma's total charge and temperature and the geometry of the trap.

Original Publication Citation

Hart, Grant W. and Bryan G. Peterson."Finding the radial parallel temperature profile in a non-neutral plasma using equilibrium calculations on experimental data." Physics of Plasmas 13 (26).

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2006-02-08

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/1290

Publisher

AIP

Language

English

College

Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Department

Physics and Astronomy

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