Electron and ion escape over a potential barrier in a mirror field

Abstract

The problem of calculating the electron loss rate and the corresponding energy loss rate from a magnetic mirror machine having a positive potential has been examined and solved to a reasonable approximation by Pastukhov (1974). This approximation is followed to produce particle and energy confinement times for ions which can be readily utilized in the study of plasma confinement in tandem mirrors. It is shown that a single additional parameter, labeled C, can be incorporated into the appropriate equations to make them equally applicable to electrons and ions; C=1 for electrons and C= square root 2 for ions.