Proof of Principle Experiment on a Control of Ion Flow and Ion Heating during Magnetic Reconnection

Abstract

Magnetic reconnection of two merging toroids was used to accelerate and heat plasma particles in TS-3 device. External application of electric field by ohmic heating coil, which is located along the center axis of this device, to the the reconnection area was found useful to vary the ion speed from zero to 20km/sec and the ion heating from 10 to 90eV. The preferential ion acceleration / heating of reconnection enable us to produce new processing plasma with arbitrary ion temperature.