Scientists discover how high-energy electrons strengthen magnetic fields(www6.slac.stanford.edu)
www6.slac.stanford.edu
Scientists discover how high-energy electrons strengthen magnetic fields
https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2021-07-19-scientists-discover-how-high-energy-electrons-strengthen-magnetic-fields.aspx
6 comments
What are the implications of this in regards to fusion containment?
I don't know of any, but it does remind me of wakefield accelerators, a compact way to generate high energy particles using plasma.
Here's the PRL article:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.12...
Abstract
Magnetic field amplification by relativistic streaming plasma instabilities is central to a wide variety of high-energy astrophysical environments as well as to laboratory scenarios associated with intense lasers and electron beams. We report on a new secondary nonlinear instability that arises for relativistic dilute electron beams after the saturation of the linear Weibel instability. This instability grows due to the transverse magnetic pressure associated with the beam current filaments, which cannot be quickly neutralized due to the inertia of background ions. We show that it can amplify the magnetic field strength and spatial scale by orders of magnitude, leading to large-scale plasma cavities with strong magnetic field and to very efficient conversion of the beam kinetic energy into magnetic energy. The instability growth rate, saturation level, and scale length are derived analytically and shown to be in good agreement with fully kinetic simulations.
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.12...
Abstract
Magnetic field amplification by relativistic streaming plasma instabilities is central to a wide variety of high-energy astrophysical environments as well as to laboratory scenarios associated with intense lasers and electron beams. We report on a new secondary nonlinear instability that arises for relativistic dilute electron beams after the saturation of the linear Weibel instability. This instability grows due to the transverse magnetic pressure associated with the beam current filaments, which cannot be quickly neutralized due to the inertia of background ions. We show that it can amplify the magnetic field strength and spatial scale by orders of magnitude, leading to large-scale plasma cavities with strong magnetic field and to very efficient conversion of the beam kinetic energy into magnetic energy. The instability growth rate, saturation level, and scale length are derived analytically and shown to be in good agreement with fully kinetic simulations.
I love how much the abstract sounds like flavor text for a sci-fi weapon.
So that raises the question, does this have any application in Star Wars energy weapons? Seems like these magnetic channels might be useful to stabilize a long range ion beam.
It has potential to make fusion available 10 years sooner. So in 40 years instead of 50 years.