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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik
EP 4: Poster Session
EP 4.24: Poster
Tuesday, February 26, 2013, 11:15–12:45, Poster OG
Laboratory Experiments on the Expansion of Magnetically Confined Plasma Loops — •Jan Tenfelde1, Felix Mackel1, Sascha Ridder1, Henning Soltwisch1, Jürgen Dreher2, Thomas Tacke2, and Philipp Kempkes3,4 — 1Institut für Experimentalphysik V, Ruhr-Universität Bochum — 2Institut für theoretische Physik I, Ruhr-Universität Bochum — 3Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität, Greifswald — 4MPI für Plasmaphysik, EURATOM Association, Greifswald
Plasma loops reminiscent of Solar flares are generated in a pulsed-power laboratory experiment. A constant apex expansion velocity as well as constant current channel diameter are observed over a wide range of experimental parameters. Commonly, the evolution of current-carrying plasma loops is interpreted as being driven by the hoop force. We compare modifications of this hoop expansion that include the effect of mass loading with the expansion velocites obtained from the experiment. In addition, the effect of boundary conditions of the electric field is investigated in 3D time-dependent MHD simulations and compared with experimental results. Both mechanisms are discussed with respect to measurements of the plasma magnetic field and plasma currents.
MHD pumping driven by the axial plasma current has been proposed as possible cause of the uniform diameter along the plasma loop. However, it is found that this mechanism does not play a significant role in our device.