The Mirrortron: an experiment to generate high transient plasma potentials

Summary form only given. The Mirrortron experiment is designed to prove that large transient space potentials can be generated in hot electron, mirror-confined plasmas. This is achieved by pulsing a strap coil that will produce an additional, local magnetic field at the midplane of the plasma, and the field strength will rise to a good fraction of the static midplane field in a few tens of nanoseconds. In the region adjacent to the midplane there will be a large magnetic gradient and the mirror force will act on the electrons and begin to expel them from the region. Ions remain unaffected on this nanosecond time scale due to their inertia and low temperature. In order to maintain quasi-neutrality, a large potential will appear in an attempt to hold the electrons in. The main characteristics of the Mirrortron experiment are described