Toward Testing Quasisymmetry of the MUSE Permanent Magnet Stellarator through Measurement of Flow Damping Effect

MUSE is a tabletop experiment at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory which is the world's first permanent magnet stellarator and the world's first operational quasiaxisymmetric stellarator [1,2]. It has been observed that in quasisymmetric magnetic field configurations, smaller viscous damping in the symmetry direction results in slower decay of flow parallel to the magnetic field compared to the decay of flow perpendicular to the magnetic field [3,4]. This poster describes the development and deployment of a Mach probe and probe box on MUSE and the measurement and comparison of the decay rate of flow in the toroidal and poloidal directions induced by a pulsed electrode. A slower decay rate in the toroidal direction should indicate quasisymmetry.