RUI: Using a Sectored Conducting Wall to Study Normal Modes and Transport in a Toroidal Electron Plasma

聚变发电的一个有希望的途径是托卡马克--一种环形(或百吉饼状)磁约束装置，它约束由带正电荷的离子和带负电荷的电子组成的热等离子体。另一方面，非中性等离子体由一种类型(正电荷或负电荷)的相对较冷的粒子组成，通常被困在使用电场和磁场组合的直装置中。这种非中性系统被用来存储反物质，也被用作量子计算元素和下一代精确时间标准的候选者，以及其他用途。劳伦斯大学是一所四年制的文科大学，该项目的特点可能是在时钟和炎热的地方之间躺着，因为它使用环形磁场(像托卡马克一样)来限制和研究纯电子(即非中性)等离子体。该装置的设计和建造具有先前的NSF/DOE支持，具有独特的定位，可以在弯曲和不均匀的磁场中探索带电粒子收集的未经测试的基本物理方面，该磁场会自动关闭。该项目将为本科生提供研究经验(以及科学著述和演讲机会)。在这种小学院环境中的本科生研究经验往往比在较大机构的可比经验提供更全面的研究技能培训，从而在很大程度上促进未来技术领域劳动力的发展。由于劳伦斯成功地吸引了物理专业的女性学生(过去5年中有27%的物理毕业生)，并增加了该大学的少数族裔入学人数(自2000年以来增加了145%)，这项研究将对物理学博士队伍中代表性不足的群体的参与产生积极影响。该设备还将被用来招收有前途的高中生参加劳伦斯大学的物理项目，并将校园和当地社区暴露在等离子体物理学科中。

A promising route to fusion power for electricity production is the tokamak - a toroidal (or bagel-shaped) magnetic confinement device that confines hot plasma composed of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons. Non-neutral plasma, on the other hand, which is composed of relatively cold particles all of one type (either positively or negatively charged), is typically trapped in a straight device that uses a combination of electric and magnetic fields. Such non-neutral systems are used to store antimatter and also serve as candidates for quantum computing elements and next generation precision time standards, among other uses. The project at Lawrence University, a four-year liberal arts college, might be characterized as lying "between a clock and a hot place," as it uses a toroidal magnetic field (like the tokamak) to confine and study a pure electron (i.e., non-neutral) plasma. The apparatus, which was designed and constructed with prior NSF/DOE support, is uniquely positioned to explore untested fundamental aspects of the physics of charged particle collections in a curved and non-uniform magnetic field that closes on itself. The project will provide research experiences (as well as scientific authorship and presentation opportunities) for undergraduate students. Undergraduate research experiences in this small college environment tend to provide more comprehensive research skills training than comparable experiences at larger institutions, thereby contributing in significant ways to developing the future workforce in technical fields. Thanks to Lawrence's success in attracting women physics majors (27% of the physics graduates in the last 5 years) and increasing minority enrollment in the university (145% increase since 2000), the research will positively impact the engagement of underrepresented groups in the physics PhD pipeline. The apparatus will also be used to recruit promising high school students to the Lawrence University physics program and expose the campus and local communities to the subject of plasma physics.