Particle Trapping in Magnetic Line Cusps

Abstract

A computer study of the magnetic line cusp with an internal field shows that a large fraction of the particles in the field-plasma boundary move in definite guiding-center orbits. In the absence of microinstabilities such particles will remain trapped between Coulomb collisions. Since only boundary particles can escape from a "stuffed" line cusp, this result gives an optimistic assessment of line cusps for fusion.