Electrostatic instabilities in a mirror trap revisited

The conditions for the stabilization of the Drift-Cyclotron Loss-Cone (DCLC) and Double-Humped (DH) microinstabilities in a mirror trap are critically revisited assuming the plasma is confined in the kinetic regime, which is characterized by an empty loss cone. The temperature of warm ions, necessary for stabilization of the DH instability, is calculated. The fraction of warm ions necessary to stabilize the DCLC instability at a given radial density gradient is calculated. Assuming the wavelength is much shorter than the Larmor radius, a simple criterion for the stability of drift-cyclotron loss-cone oscillations is derived whose accuracy is verified by comparison with the solution of the exact dispersion equation and with known experimental data obtained in the past decades in PR-6, 2XII, 2XIIB, TMX, and TMX-U devices for plasma confinement. Published by AIP Publishing.