The Synthesized Hot Ion Plasmoid Experiment at GDT

The Synthesised Hot Ion Plasmoid (SHIP) experiment is in progress at the GDT facility of the Budker Institute (Novosibirsk). It is aimed at the investigation of plasmas in the region of high neutron production in a GDT based fusion neutron source proposed by the Budker Institute. This paper presents the recent results obtained in the experiments with SHIP. The results of numerical simulations are compared with the experimental results.

The average value of fast ion density was two times greater than density of unperturbed streaming plasma and three times greater than the warm ion density in the presence of NBI. Fast ion confinement was determined only by Coulomb collisions and charge - exchange of fast ions on neutral beams. No evidence of MHD or micro instabilities was observed. Ambipolar plugging was demonstrated in the SHIP experiment. Further experiments with upgraded Neutral Beam system are started.