Coriolis Forces Modify Magnetostatic Ponderomotive Potentials

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Coriolis forces in a rotating frame affect magnetostatic ponderomotive potentials in cylindrical plasma systems, revealing non-inertial effects that influence plasma control strategies.

Contribution

It extends previous slab model analyses to cylindrical systems, demonstrating how non-inertial frame effects alter electric field structures and ponderomotive forces in plasma.

Findings

Coriolis forces induce counterintuitive electric field behaviors in rotating frames.

Non-inertial effects lead to magnetic-field-aligned electric fields in the plasma.

Implications for optimizing antenna configurations in cylindrical plasma devices.

Abstract

It is possible to produce a ponderomotive effect in a plasma system without time-varying fields, if the plasma flows over spatial oscillations in the field. This can be achieved by superimposing a spatially oscillatory perturbation on a guide field, then setting up an electric field perpendicular to the guide field to drive flow over the perturbation. However, subtle distinctions in the structure of the resulting electric field can entirely change the behavior of the resulting ponderomotive force. Previous work has shown that, in slab models, these distinctions can be explained in terms of the polarization of the effective wave that appears in the co-moving frame. Here we consider what happens to this picture in a cylindrical system, where the transformation to the co-moving (rotating) frame is not inertial. It turns out that the non-inertial nature of this frame transformation can lead to counterintuitive behavior, partly due to the appearance of parallel (magnetic-field-aligned) electric fields in the rotating frame even in cases where none existed in the laboratory frame. Apart from the academic interest of this study, the practical impact lies in being better able to anticipate the antenna configuration on the plasma periphery of a cylindrical plasma that will lead to optimal ponderomotive barrier formation in the interior plasma.