Observations of plasma heating in a turbulent torus

Abstract

The Texas turbulent torus is a device to turbulently heat a plasma and maintain the heating current to confine the plasma in a tokamak configuration. Initial results show penetration of the heating current at densities up to 1013 cm−3, heating of the electrons to temperatures of order 10 keV, and the heating of a fraction of the ions to temperatures of several keV.