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arXiv · 1704.08782

Emergent kink stability of a magnetized plasma jet injected into a transverse background magnetic field

Yue Zhang·Mark Gilmore·Scott C. Hsu·Dustin M. Fisher·Alan G. Lynn
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Abstract

We report experimental results on the injection of a magnetized plasma jet into a transverse background magnetic field in the HelCat linear plasma device at the University of New Mexico [M. Gilmore et al., J. Plasma Phys. 81, 345810104 (2015)]. After the plasma jet leaves the plasma-gun muzzle, a tension force arising from an increasing curvature of the background magnetic field induces in the jet a sheared axial-flow gradient above the theoretical kink-stabilization threshold. We observe that this emergent sheared axial flow stabilizes the n=1 kink mode in the jet, whereas a kink instability is observed in the jet when there is no background magnetic field presented.

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Yue Zhang, Mark Gilmore, Scott C. Hsu, Dustin M. Fisher, Alan G. Lynn. 2017-10-20. Emergent kink stability of a magnetized plasma jet injected into a transverse background magnetic field. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5010188

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