Versatile toroidal facility (VTF) for space plasma research

Summary form only given. The versatile toroidal facility (VTF) is a student-built large toroidal plasma machine having a helical magnetic field, that guides electrons emitted from heated LaB/sub 6/ filaments to flow from the bottom side to the topside of the plasma chamber. These upward flowing electrons serve two purposes: (1) creating a background plasma through electron collisions with neutral gases (e.g., H/sub 2/, Ar, O/sub 2/) and (2) forming a field-aligned electric current. The VTF plasma machine is ideal for the study of ionospheric plasma heating and space plasma processes, in a plasma environment characterized by: /spl omega//sub pe///spl omega//sub ce//spl ges/3 and T/sub e//spl sim/T/sub i//spl sim/5 e/spl nu/ where /spl omega//sub pe/, /spl omega//sub ce/, T/sub e/, and T/sub i/ represent the electron plasma frequency, the electron gyrofrequency, the electron temperature, and the ion temperature in the VTF, respectively. The VTF plasma has sharp density gradient in the radical direction and intense magnetic field-aligned electric currents. These VTF plasma conditions can properly simulate auroral plasma condition for the excitation of low-frequency ionospheric density fluctuations.