Particle, Charge, and Energy Rearrangement in Rotating Magnetized Plasma

Abstract

Rotating plasma exhibits a number of unusual effects, particularly when several species of ions are present. This thesis identifies and explores new effects involving transfers of particles and energy. These include novel rotation-driven differential transport effects that can facilitate the flushing of fusion ash as well as heating effects that can preferentially heat fuel ions in a fusion plasma. In order to appreciate the possibilities in plasma, it has been useful to analyze counterparts of these effects in rotating, neutral gases. Rotating neutral gases, which while not as rich in phenomena as multi-species plasma, do exhibit certain similar curious effects such as the piezothermal effect and the Ranque-Hilsch heat pump effect. Appreciating these gas effects now gives insight into the new plasma effects. These rotating plasma effects are further explored as applied to both nuclear fusion and mass separation. New analytical and numerical tools are developed to describe these effects. We also classify the amount of free energy in plasma (rotating or not) that can be released under various constraints. Of particular academic interest is a novel fundamental property of waves in collisionless plasma: that the Gardner restacking energy can in fact be recovered through purely diffusive wave-particle operations.