Field reversed configuration lifetime scaling based on measurements from the Large s Experiment

Abstract

Flux, energy and particle lifetimes have been measured in the new Large s Experiment field reversed configuration (FRC) facility. By careful control of the formation process, it was possible to form symmetric, quiescent FRCs, with s values higher than 4, in the one year of operation of the device. A wide range of plasma conditions was achieved, with ion temperatures varying between 0.1 and 1.5 keV. The lifetimes continue to scale approximately with the rs2/ρi parameter found in earlier work, with a coefficient proportional to xs to a power between 0.5 and 1