ENERGY CONCENTRATION IN A HIGH-CURRENT GAS-DISCHARGE - EXPERIMENTS ON PLASMA-FOCUS-PRODUCED DENSE-PLASMA SPHEROMAK

Experimental results are presented which verify the possibility, formerly predicted,(1) of the formation of a closed, spheromak-like magnetic configuration (SLMC) in a plasma focus discharge. The model is based on the self-generated transformation of a toroidal (i.e. azimuthal) field into a poloidal one. At its final stage, the SLMC takes the form of a squeezed spheromak, which includes a combined Z-curly theta-pinch at its major axis, exhibiting a power density several orders of magnitude larger than that measured experimentally on a force-free flux-conserver-confined spheromak formed by helicity injection. The results suggest a possibility of further concentrating the plasma power density by means of compressing the SLMC-trapped plasma by the residual magnetic field.