An ensemble of low-energy positrons injected into a supported magnetic dipole trap can remain trapped for more than a second. Trapping experiments with and without a positive magnet bias yield confinement times up to τ_{A}=(1.5±0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe high-efficiency injection of a low-energy positron beam into the confinement volume of a magnetic dipole has been demonstrated experimentally. This was accomplished by tailoring the three-dimensional guiding-center drift orbits of positrons via optimization of electrostatic potentials applied to electrodes at the edge of the trap, thereby producing localized and essentially lossless cross-field particle transport by means of the E×B drift. The experimental findings are reproduced and elucidated by numerical simulations, enabling a comprehensive understanding of the process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe study the behavior of high-energy positrons emitted from a radioactive source in a magnetospheric dipole field configuration. Because the conservation of the first and second adiabatic invariants is easily destroyed in a strongly inhomogeneous dipole field for high-energy charged particles, the positron orbits are nonintegrable, resulting in chaotic motions. In the geometry of a typical magnetospheric levitated dipole experiment, it is shown that a considerable ratio of positrons from a ^{22}Na source, located at the edge of the confinement region, has chaotic long orbit lengths before annihilation.
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