Spectral and statistical study of relaxation processes in two dimensional guiding center plasma using Penning trap data.

摘要

Vortex evolution has been studied for confined electron plasma inside of a Malmberg Penning trap. For varied initial conditions, electron plasma was generated and then confined within a strong magnetic field. Relaxation of this turbulent system was studied. The experimental results were analyzed and compared with existing theories. Vortex density decay follows a power law and results fall within the predictions made for strong turbulent scattering regime and weakly interacting colloidal particle regime. Suppression of nonlinearity was also studied by calculating the probability density function for various cases. We found nonlinearity suppressing correlations appears very early in the experimental runs, and at later times it slowly becomes enhanced.