Study of dense FRCs formation and their transport with multistage compression

Summary form only given. A, pulsed hot dense compact plasma torus (CT) in a Field Reversed Configuration (FRC), of few keV temperature, density (10
²³
-10
²⁴
) m
^-3
, and a life time of several microseconds is of great interest for fusion research as an alternative to already canonical inertial, magnetic stationary approaches and magnetized target fusion [1-3]. This paper provides a brief description of prototypical experiments on formation of two FRCs, their transport in a sequence of multistage compressions and final collision in the center of device. The goal of this experiment is to test various alternative pulsed power technologies for FRC formation as well as the evolution of formed CTs at higher stored energies. Furthermore, the experiment may provide a preliminary assessment of the feasibility of such a scheme of distributed magnetic compression/acceleration of plasma CTs for controlled thermonuclear fusion. Analysis of first experimental results with stored energy in the 0.5-1 MJ and their comparison with respective computer simulations will be given.