MCTrans++: A Scoping Tool for Centrifugal Mirrors

The centrifugal mirror confinement scheme incorporates supersonic rotation of a plasma into a magnetic mirror device. This concept has been experimentally shown to drastically decrease parallel losses and dampen instabilities as compared to classical mirrors. MCTrans++ is a 0D scoping tool which rapidly models experimental operating points in the Centrifugal Mirror Fusion Experiment (CMFX) at the University of Maryland.

In the collisionless regime, the losses agree with Pastukhov, and the confining potential is due to both an ambipolar and centrifugal potential, whereas the perpendicular losses are classical. Radiation losses such as Bremsstrahlung, cyclotron, and line radiation are all accounted for. A neutrals model suggests that the dominant energy loss is through charge exchange.

The steady-state is found with the SUNDIALS ARKODE package, and has two methods of solving -- fixed voltage and fixed temperature. The software is also suitable for use in a non-linear optimizer, and can be operated with time-dependence, representing a capacitive discharge, for example. This transport code has been used to verify results from prior centrifugal mirrors, create an experimental plan for CMFX, and find configurations for reactor-scale fusion devices.