https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2002-00239-3
Instabilities of an electron cloud in a Penning trap
1
Johannes Gutenberg University, Institut fuer Physik,
55099 Mainz, Germany
2
Department of Physics, Bangalore
University, Bangalore 560056, India
Corresponding author: a werth@mail.uni-mainz.de
Received:
5
August
2002
Revised:
14
October
2002
Published online:
17
December
2002
We have measured the storage instabilities of electrons
in a Penning trap at low magnetic fields. These measurements are
carried out as a function of the trapping voltage, for different
magnetic fields. It is seen that these instabilities occur at the
same positions when the trapping voltage is expressed as a
percentage of the maximum voltage, given by the stability limit.
The characteristic frequencies at which these instabilities occur,
obey a relation that is given by 
, where 
, 
and
are the axial, perturbed cyclotron and the magnetron
frequencies of the trapped electrons respectively, and the n's are
integers. The reason for these instabilities are attributed to
higher order static perturbations in the trapping potential.
PACS: 52.27.Aj – Single-component, electron-positive-ion plasma / 82.80.Qx – Ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2003
