Containing Plasma - Electric & Magnetic Fields Explained

[EvilTesla]

Recently I have heard that to contain a plasma, you need both an electric and magnetic field.

I'd like to look into this more, does anyone know where I can find information on it?

 

[Nebozilla]

I can't remember where it is but look up a toroid plasma reactor thingy. It uses magnetic fields. Found out about it as we were making our amateur particle accelerator. The reactor starts with a T...thats all i know :)

EDIT: Tokamak <---that's it.

 

[EvilTesla]

That's the problem.

I can find articles on the EXISTENCE of a Tokamak, but nothing on the physics that I can understand.

Maby that's the problem, I COULD just look up a bunch of papers on plasma confinement, but I know I wouldn't understand them..

 

[Count Iblis]

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/plasma.html

 

[EvilTesla]

MMM!

thanks very much


wow...261 pages. I hope I have the time, perservearence, and knowledge to understand it all.

 

[iantresman]

It depends on the plasma.

A candle flame, a very weak plasma, requires nothing to "contain it". A bolt of lightning is self-contained by its own electromagnetic pinch. The plasma in a neon sign is contained by glass (though it forms a sheath parallel to the glass surface). And the plasma in the Sun is almost contained by gravity (but it leaks out through the solar wind)