Review on GAMMA 10 experiment

Physics of tandem mirror plasmas have been investigated in GAMMA 10. MHD stability of anisotropic plasma in the average minimum B system is studied in detail. Formation of potentials for axial confinement is performed by ECRH alone without creating sloshing ions. In hot ion modes by ICRH, where Ti/Te≳(mi/me)1/3, ion temperatures of about 10 keV are achieved and thermonuclear fusion neutrons are detected for the firs time in a tandem mirror. Details of the plasma confinement in the hot ion modes indicate that axial confinement is consistent with classical potential confinement. This implies that radial confinement is better than axial. Density fluctuations due to drift waves are well suppressed by radial electric fields naturally formed as the axial potentials build up.