Basic disintegration mode of ion superclusters from PF discharges

Summary form only given. The basic disintegration mode of deuterium-ion clusters and superclusters of mass over charge ratio m/Z /spl Gt/10 (Z/spl ges/1 a.u.) is monitored with a Thomson (parabola) spectrometer with magnetic and electric fields between poles of intensity B/spl sime/6 kG, E/spl sime/8 kV/cm. D-ion clusters and superclusters are produced from /spl sim/1 MA plasma focus discharges with a 20 kJ at 30 kV powering capacitor bank. D/sup +/, D/sub 2//sup +/, etc. ion spectra are obtained from the parabolic ion track patterns on the spectrometer target after exposure to multiple discharges. The observed highest density of ion tracks in the 67/spl deg/ direction is that of the D/sub 2//sup +/ ion species. A striking phenomenon is the pairing of D/sub 2//sup +/, tracks which results in the formation of "lines" of tracks containing an even number of tracks. These lines of tracks [each line contains 2, 4,...10, 12... tracks] which form the parabolic ion-track pattern, are all oriented in the direction orthogonal to the D/sub 2//sup +/, parabola, i.e., essentially in the direction of the spectrometer force field.