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The Wingerson Corkscrew Effect

It suggest a way to remove an obstacle to thermonuclear power, and a new kind of experimental magnetic bottle is being built

A NEW KIND of magnetic bottle incorporating a corkscrew-shaped field is being built this fall at M.I.T. to test a newly suggested was of removing a major obstacle to harnessing thermonuclear energy. Proposed by a graduate student, Air Force Captain Richard C. Wingerson, '52, it is being built by another graduate student, James S. Tulenko, under the supervision of David J. Rose, '50, Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Professor Rose believes that Captain Wingerson has found a solution to a problem with which many men have struggled in vain.

Thermonuclear reactions occur between the nuclei of isotopes of hydrogen at extremely high temperatures. In the sun and stars, gravity confines this material, which physicists call plasma; on earth confinement can be achieved only by magnetic fields. Magnetic containers of various shapes are being studied, but the better the container is, the harder it is to put the plasma inside.

One important class of bottle consists of a long pipe, the walls of which are a magnetic field created by an electrical coil around it. The ends of this pipe are open but "mirror" magnetic fields are set up there to serve as stoppers. Captain Wingerson has found a way of filling the bottle with plasma, by using corkscrew magnetic fields. This structure, his work indicates, would be much more effective than configurations proposed hitherto--for example, an undulating field investigated two years ago by the Soviet physicist, K. D. Sinel'nikov.

By making this field spiral like a drill, Captain Wingerson's computations show that a beam of particles shot into the tube along its axis with a certain energy can be wound up or unwound. In other words, some of the particles' longitudinal energy can be transformed into perpendicular energy. The mirrors are then more effective, and enough particles can be retained in the tube for sufficient time for energy to be released by their fusion.

In effect, his device would be similar to a lobster trap. It would be easy for a particle to get into the thing but difficult for it to escape because of the trap's geometrical configuration. The walls of this trap are the complex magnetic fields created by the axial coil and the mirrors--and the entrance to the trap is determined by the corkscrew fields.

Theoretical studies made by Captain Wingerson have reached a point where definite predictions of the behavior of charged particles in the corkscrew structure have been made, and designs for a major experiment are under way. The ionic charged particles that must be confined for a thermonuclear reaction to occur are relatively heavy, and would necessitate a structure between 50 and 100 feet long. The experimental scale model being

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[[caption]]How Wingerson's magnetic "corkscrew" operates: In upper picture (A), the helical wire generates a magnetic field in the magnetic pipe to wind up an entering particle. Below (B), the corkscrew has been combined with a magnetic bottle to trap high-energy particles and form a plasma.[[/caption]]

NOVEMBER, 1961
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