High-Energy Electron Confinement in a Magnetic Cusp Configuration

We report experimental results validating the concept that plasma confinement is enhanced in a magnetic cusp configuration when β (plasma pressure/magnetic field pressure) is of order unity. This enhancement is required for a fusion power reactor based on cusp confinement to be feasible. The magnetic cusp configuration possesses a critical advantage: the plasma is stable to large scale perturbations. However, early work indicated that plasma loss rates in a reactor based on a cusp configuration were too large for net power production. Grad and others theorized that at high β a sharp boundary would form between the plasma and the magnetic field, leading to substantially smaller loss rates. The current experiment validates this theoretical conjecture for the first time and represents critical progress toward the Polywell fusion concept which combines a high β cusp configuration with an electrostatic fusion for a compact, economical, power-producing nuclear fusion reactor.