High-density plasma production with potential confinement in the GAMMA 10 tandem mirror.

The improvement of potential confinement was attained in the GAMMA 10 tandem mirror [Phys. Rev. Lett. 55, 939 (1985); Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research, Washington, 1990 (Intemational Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, 1991), Vol. 2, p. 539] by axisymmetrization of heating systems for the plasma production, heating, and potential formation. A significant increase of the density and diamagnetism by the potential confinement was observed. In the previous experiment, it was difficult to increase the central cell density higher than 2.7 × 10[sup 18]m[sup -3] One of the possible mechanisms is the density clamping due to the eigenmode formation ofthe ion-cyclotron-range of frequency (ICRF) waves in the axial direction. With high harmonic ICRF waves (RF3), the experiments to overcome this problem have been performed. In preliminary experiments with RF3 and NBI the maximum density of 4x 10[sup 18]m[sup -3] was attained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]