What is Parker's Effect?
The term "Parker's Effect" refers to a discovery made
by the astrophysicist Eugene Parker, while investigating the physics of Earth's
magnetopause. It was discussed in six
papers that he, with his colleague Ian Lerche, wrote in the late 1960s.
It occurs at the interface between an isotropic plasma
and a vacuum magnetic field, in the boundary layer where the plasma and the
field overlap, when the plasma is flowing parallel to the externally applied
field. The theory predicts that if the
flow speed is supersonic, the layer cannot exist in equilibrium.
In 1979, Owen Storey and Laurent Cairo pointed out
that it might also apply to the physics of fusion plasmas. Specifically, they showed that if the
flowing plasma was confined by the magnetic field rather than the inverse, then
the effect would reinforce the confinement [2].
However, the reality of this effect has not yet been
demonstrated, neither computationally nor experimentally.
In 2022, we created Meranti
Research Laboratories with initial objective to verify the reality of Parker's
Effect, and to investigate its possible relevance to fusion.
[1] E.N. Parker. "Dynamical properties of the magnetosphere" In
Physics of the Magnetosphere: Based upon the Proceedings of the Conference Held
at Boston College June 19-28, 1967. Springer
Netherlands, 1968.
[2] L.R.O. Storey and L. Cairo.
"Kinetic theory of the boundary layer between a flowing
isotropic plasma and a magnetic field." Magnetospheric Boundary Layers
148 (1979)
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