A new interpretation of the time evolution of the RF electric field in a crossed-field device

The results of the recent computer simulations using the time stepped Maxwell equation code named MAGIC[1] coupled with previous theoretical [2] and experimental work [3], strongly indicate that soliton-like solitary waves exists in the interaction space of a crossed-field device (CFD). The existence of soliton-like solitary waves allows us to postulate a new series of events in the time evolution of the rf electric field in an operating CFD. This new series of events which is described in this paper differs significantly from the classical theory [4] which considers that power growth occurs after the spoke has formed. From our work we postulate that the power growth mechanism is a result of the evolution of a strongly nonlinear instability and that the spoke is the saturation state of this instability.