Center for Magnetic Self Organization
in Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas
For Students:
SSX
The SSX device at Swarthmore College features a 1-meter long, high vacuum chamber in which we form and merge hot plasma plumes at 100 km/s and up to one-million degrees. The SSX experiment aims to perform studies that inform and are motivated by processes we observe in space, for example on the solar surface and in the solar wind. We have studied the 3D magnetic structure of the merging process using large probe arrays. A process called magnetic reconnection heats the plasma. We have studied ion and electron heating due to reconnection using high resolution spectroscopy. Finally, the result of the merging process generates self-organized, twisted, magnetically relaxed structures (see figure).
MST
MST is a toroidal (donut-shaped) magnetic confinement device used for research on magnetic fusion and basic plasma science. MST plasmas exhibit a full range of magnetic self organization processes associated with magnetic reconnection, particle heating and acceleration, dynamo and momentum transport, and magnetic turbulence. These processes are closely intertwined, since all depend on magnetic reconnection caused by variations in the current flowing in the plasma. For magnetic fusion, the reversed field pinch configuration studied in MST has possible advantages associated with reduced magnetic field requirements and simple ohmic plasma heating to temperatures hotter than the Sun.
A National Science Foundation Physics Frontier Center,
established in coordination with the Department of Energy.
established in coordination with the Department of Energy.