Electron Power Systems, Inc. of
Acton, Massachusetts,
United States, claims to have developed a technology for maintaining small stable
plasma
Plasma or plasm may refer to:
Science
* Plasma (physics), one of the four fundamental states of matter
* Plasma (mineral), a green translucent silica mineral
* Quark–gluon plasma, a state of matter in quantum chromodynamics
Biology
* Blood pla ...
toroids called electron spiral toroids (ESTs) which remain stable in
Earth's atmosphere without the use of any special
magnetic field
A magnetic field is a vector field that describes the magnetic influence on moving electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic materials. A moving charge in a magnetic field experiences a force perpendicular to its own velocity and to ...
s. They claim to have created these toroids in the laboratory, and to have developed a mathematical model for them that is similar to some explanations for
ball lightning. An EST may be a special case of a
spheromak.
Because of EST's claimed lack of need for an external stabilizing magnetic field, EPS hope to be able to create small efficient
fusion reactors by colliding magnetically accelerated ESTs together at speeds high enough to induce ballistic
nuclear fusion.
Their model for their reported toroidal phenomena was extensively criticised by a December 2000 technical report commissioned by NASA. , EPS claim to have met the criticisms of the NASA report, and to have demonstrated that their model is mathematically sound, and state that they are ready to proceed with development of their technology.
References
* Jean-Luc Cambier and David A. Micheletti
Theoretical Analysis of the Electron Spiral Toroid ConceptNASA/CR-2000-210654.
* C. Chen, R. Pakter, and D. C. Seward
Equilibrium and stability properties of self-organized electron spiral toroids ''Physics of Plasmas'' Vol 8(10) pp. 4441–4449. October 2001.
External links
The official web site of Electron Power Systems.
Plasma technology and applications
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