Speaker
Description
The ultimate goals of the APEX (A Positron Electron eXperiment) Collaboration are the generation and investigation of conned, strongly magnetized, electron-positron plasmas in the laboratory. The mass symmetry of such plasmas simplifies many aspects of their physics, as has been described in more than four decades of theory/simulation predictions.
Our road map to conducting experimental studies requires unifying and advancing state-of-the-art physics and engineering in several areas, including:
• extended accumulation and high-capacity storage of large numbers of positrons (originating from NEPOMUC);
• two superconducting, tabletop-sized toroidal connement devices with complementary magnetic topologies (a dipole and a stellarator), in which the positrons will be combined with electrons and their plasma properties studied; and
• the development and verification of a number of essential enabling techniques --- e.g., efficient transport of positrons across magnetic ux surfaces and subsequent trapping (previously demonstrated in the single-particle regime).
This talk will provide a broad overview of recent headway made along that road map, which has included progress in non-neutral plasma trapping; the further development of the positron beam and techniques for injecting it into toroidal geometries, including with an electron space charge present; and the development of the toroidal traps.
