Experimental Trajectory Analysis of Charged Particles in a Cusped Geometry

Abstract

Electrons are injected axially from an external source into a cusp field. For the particles to be transmitted through the cusp they must be injected inside a ``loss disk'' of radius ρ_critical = (mv)/(qB₀). At larger values of injection radius the depth of penetration beyond the median plane is measured and is in agreement with the maximum penetration depth predicted by the theory. The question of trapping is investigated and no long time confinement is obtained. The maximum number of reflections observed inside the cusp region is five.