The Maryland Centrifugal eXperiment (MCX)
MCX is a rotating mirror machine designed to rotate a magnetically confined plasma at speeds several times the Alvén velocity. We hope to demonstrate two main concepts:
1) Plasma confinement in a rotating mirror machine is much better than in a standard, non-rotating mirror machine.
2) Supersonic rotation velocities exhibit velocity shear (
) suppressing some MHD instabilities.MCX is located in the Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics (IREAP), at the University of Maryland, College Park. It is funded by the Department of Energy’s Innovative Confinement Concepts program.
My contribution to MCX
I am working on a photo-emission diagnostic for analyzing time resolved emissions of the plasma. Currently, I am interested in H-alpha produced by the plasma, but later I hope to look at other informative wavelengths. Ultimately, I hope to determine a time resolved radial profile of the neutral particle density in the plasma. If you are interested in this project, have any questions, or have any suggestions, please contact me.