Acquisition of Equipment and Instrumentation for a Space-Physics Simulation Facility at West Virginia University

West Virginia University Research Corporation, Morgantown WV

Investigators

Abstract

This is a Major Research Instrumentation award to acquire equipment to upgrade the West Virginia University Plasma Physics Laboratory's new Space Physics Simulation Facility. The facility consists of a cylindrical, stainless-steel vacuum chamber 4 meters long and 1.8 meters in diameter. The objective of the upgrade is to acquire equipment necessary to launch a unique category of experiments within the subfield of dusty plasmas, a subfield with wide-ranging scientific and technological applications. The new experiments enabled will provide information about the electrostatic dust-cyclotron instability and other new waves and instabilities associated with dusty plasmas having the dust-grain gyroradius much smaller than the radius of the plasma, a parameter regime yet to be achieved in the laboratory. The experiments will provide access to a parameter regime that has commanded significant recent theoretical attention. The equipment includes electromagnets, vacuum pumps, power supply, and 16-channel waveform recorder. The long range goal is for the Space Physics Simulation Facility to assume scientific leadership in experimental studies of magnetized dusty plasmas.