Theory of asymmetry-induced transport in a non-neutral plasma

Radial transport produced by static nonaxisymmetric fields is thought to limit the confinement of non-neutral plasmas and experiments with applied asymmetries have verified that such fields do produce transport. A theoretical model of such transport is presented which is appropriate for long, thin plasmas. The theory allows for asymmetries with nonzero frequency and includes the linear collective response to applied wall voltages. For the regime where the effective collision frequency is large, the asymmetry-induced radial particle flux is derived from the drift kinetic/Poisson equations including collisions. For low collision frequencies a heuristic derivation is given. In both regimes the resulting transport is dominated by particles that move in resonance with the asymmetry. Possible applications of the theory to several experiments are discussed. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S1070-664X(99)01707-3].