Effect of Collision Axes Offset of the Plasmoid in the Collisional Merging Process of FRC Plasma*)

In this study, the effect of the collision axes offset in the collisional merging process of field-reversed configuration (FRC) in the FAT-CM (FRC amplification via translation-collisional merging) device was experimentally investigated for the first time. The offset of incident axes during collision does not exhibit any considerable effect on particle inventory and trapped magnetic flux of the merged FRC, which is inconsistent with the results predicted via the three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation using the MHD infrastructure for plasma simulation (MIPS) code. Based on the obtained results, the FRC exhibits robust stability and it does not collapse even when subjected to destructive perturbations during the dynamic translation and collision processes.