Behaviour of a toroidal plasma in a rotating magnetic field

A toroidal system has been constructed for an investigation of plasma containment by the combination of a steady toroidal magnetic field and a rotating transverse magnetic field of 2-pole configuration. An argon plasma is pre-formed with a separate r.f. field which is terminated when the rotating field is applied. For low rotating field strengths, stable compression is observed. For B 0 >(B 0 ) crit approximately=0.8 mT, however, the behaviour changes markedly. Rapid plasma heating occurs and the density corresponds to nearly full ionization. Under these conditions little compression is observed, a consequence, apparently, of the anomalous resistivity measured.