Energy Confinement Scaling Predictions for the Stabilized Tandem Mirror

The tandem mirror remains an attractive magnetic confinement geometry for fusion. The absence of toroidal curvature and relatively weak internal plasma parallel current gives the system strongly favorable stability and transport properties. Recent GAMMA-10 experiments demonstrate that sheared plasma rotation suppresses turbulent radial losses. Total energy confinement times calculated for the GAMMA-10 are found to be significantly larger than the corresponding empirical confinement times in toroidal devices. The tandem mirror appears to have a qualitatively different form of drift wave radial transport from that in toroidal devices.