Diocotron modes in pure electron plasmas in the APEX levitating dipole trap

Abstract Observations of persistent toroidal modes in dipole-trapped pure electron plasmas are presented. Non-neutral electron plasmas were confined by the poloidal magnetic field of the APEX (A Positron Electron eXperiment) levitating dipole trap. The negative bias of the electron emitter was gated to control the filling time. Large amplitude, narrow-band oscillations were consistently observed in wall probe measurements after the fill. The oscillatory image-charge currents induced by the trapped electron plasma typically persisted for many seconds with fundamental frequencies, f 0 = 50 to 500 kHz, that scale with the <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" overflow="scroll"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mrow> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>E</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">→</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:mrow> <mml:mo>×</mml:mo> <mml:mrow> <mml:mover> <mml:mi>B</mml:mi> <mml:mo stretchy="false">→</mml:mo> </mml:mover> </mml:mrow> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> drift velocity. We attribute this feature to the dipole-equivalent of the diocotron mode that is commonly observed in non-neutral plasmas in linear traps.