Toroidal Stabilized Pinch Formed with Relativistic Electrons

A plasma heating and confinement system is described which is based on a toroidal stabilized pinch formed with relativistic electrons. The pinch is formed by inducing current in a hot electron plasma confined in toroidally shaped minimum-$B$ mirror fields. For parameters achieved with a mirror-confined hot electron plasma, current in the range ${10}^6$ to ${10}^7$ A carried by 10- to 100-MeV electrons is estimated to be attainable along with heating of a dense plasma background to a multi-keV temperature.