Rotating wall technique
Open-knowledge reference entry
The rotating wall technique (RW technique) is a method used to compress a single-component plasma (a cold dense gas of charged particles) confined in an electromagnetic trap. It is one of many scientific and technological applications that rely on storing charged particles in vacuum. This technique has found extensive use in improving the quality of these traps and in tailoring of both positron and antiproton (i.e. antiparticle) plasmas for a variety of end uses.
Overview
Single-component plasmas (SCP), which are a type of nonneutral plasma, have many uses, including studying a variety of plasma physics phenomena and for the accumulation, storage and delivery of antiparticles. Applications include the creation and study of antihydrogen, beams to study the interaction of positrons with ordinary matter and to create dense gases of positronium (Ps) atoms, and the creation of Ps-atom beams.
The "rotating wall (RW) technique" uses rotating electric fields to compress SCP in PM traps radially to increase the plasma density and/or to counteract the tendency of plasma to diffuse radially out of the trap. It has proven crucial in improving the quality and hence utility of trapped plasmas and trap-based beams.
Principles of operation
For this application, a plasma is stored in a Penning–Malmberg (PM) trap in a uniform magnetic field, B. The charge cloud is typically cylindrical in shape with dimension along B large compared to the radius. This charge produces a radial electric field which would tend to push the plasma outward.
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