Observation of centrifugally driven interchange instabilities in a plasma confined by a magnetic dipole.
Centrifugally driven interchange instabilities are observed in a laboratory plasma confined by a dipole magnetic field. The instabilities appear when an equatorial mesh is biased to drive a radial current that causes rapid axisymmetric plasma rotation. The observed instabilities are quasicoherent in the laboratory frame of reference; they have global radial mode structures and low azimuthal mode numbers, and they are modified by the presence of energetic, magnetically confined electrons. Results from a self-consistent nonlinear simulation reproduce the measured mode structures.
Levitt
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Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA. b1187@columbia.edu
Maslovsky
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Mauel
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