Particle deconfinement in a bent magnetic mirror

Coils misalignment in a magnetic mirror can produce additional particle transport. The magnetic field non axi-symmetry is responsible for radial and longitudinal drifts in a way much similar to the neo-classical transport in a tandem mirror cell distorted by end plugs. Accordingly, a regime exhibiting large radial displacements - similar to the resonant regime in tandem mirrors - can be obtained by confining ions azimuthally, for example by means of a properly tuned radial electric field. Because of the mass dependence of the magnetic field non-homogeneity drift velocities, the azimuthal trapping is mass specific, allowing, in principle, the filtering of a specific species based on its mass.