Particle Transport, Electric Currents, and Pressure Balance in a Magnetically Immobilized Plasma

Abstract

An analysis of a plasma immobilized by a magnetic field shows that each kind of charged particle has a general drift perpendicular to the gradient of the field, but that there is no corresponding electric current density. There is an exact cancellation arising from the gradient of the Larmor radius. The current density which is present arises exclusively from the particle density gradient and is not associated with any drift of matter.