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Updated: May 29, 2026

Non-equilibrium Microwave Plasma for Efficient High Temperature Chemistry
Published on: August 1, 2017
Anisotropic ion heating and tail generation during tearing mode magnetic reconnection in a high-temperature plasma
R M Magee1, D J Den Hartog, S T A Kumar
1Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, USA. richard.magee@mail.wvu.edu
Abstract:
Complementary measurements of ion energy distributions in a magnetically confined high-temperature plasma show that magnetic reconnection results in both anisotropic ion heating and the generation of suprathermal ions. The anisotropy, observed in the C(+6) impurity ions, is such that the temperature perpendicular to the magnetic field is larger than the temperature parallel to the magnetic field. The suprathermal tail appears in the majority ion distribution and is well described by a power law to energies 10 times the thermal energy. These observations may offer insight into the energization process.
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