Non-adiabatic reflection of particles in a multipole plasma trap configuration

Abstract

Charged particles incident on a region of time-varying, spatially inhomogeneous electric field may be reflected back toward the region of weaker field. This effect is used for adiabatic particle confinement in charged particle traps, but it may also be subject to non-adiabatic reflection that increases the particle energy. The electrons of a plasma in a multipole plasma trap may be heated by this effect. This work explores the energy gain of electrons in such a device with parameters relevant to laboratory experimentation, and it presents in one representative case an average 10% energy gain after a single reflection.

Keywords

• Multipole plasma trap
• Charged particle trap
• Fermi acceleration
• Anomalous heating
• Collisionless heating