The influence of electrical resistivity, magnetic field strength, boundary conditions, and injection conditions on the behavior of the magnetically injected plasmas in the PBFA-II opening switch

Summary form only given. The plasma opening switch used on PBFA-II uses a source plasma which is injected into the interelectrode gap along the field lines of a modest-strength applied poloidal magnetic field. The distribution of this plasma within the gap plays an important role in the behavior of the switch. Knowledge of this distribution is critical for performing relevant switch calculations and for interpreting experimental data. In the present work, the influence on that distribution of the plasma electrical resistivity, the applied magnetic field strength, and the boundary and injection conditions have been investigated with the 2-1/2-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics simulation code, MACH2. It is shown that, for a plasma of relatively low electrical resistivity, the distribution of plasma in the gap is quite sensitive to the magnetic field boundary condition.