Study of Plasma Flow Velocity in an Open SMOLA Screw Trap

Abstract

The physics of confinement of a rotating plasma in a magnetic field with linear helical symmetry is being studied at the Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS on the open SMOLA trap. An indicator of the quality of confinement is the plasma flow velocity in the system. The paper describes the applied diagnostics based on the Mach probe under conditions of non-magnetized plasma, which made it possible to determine the longitudinal flow velocity in experiments. The measured longitudinal flow velocity was (0.5–5) · 106 cm/s in various operating modes of the installation. The dependence of the speed on the magnitude of the magnetic field corrugation is discussed. A reverse flow of trapped particles returning to the containment zone has been detected.