Thermal and radiation losses in a linear device

An analysis is presented of the electron temperature in a linear device which includes the effect of thermal conduction, heat flux limit, radiation, and end plugs. It is found that the thermal conduction and the heat flux limit are dominant in the initial phase of cooling, while the later phase is almost completely controlled by radiation that spatially homogenizes the temperature distribution. In the case of bremsstrahlung, within the frame of the present model, the temperature decays to zero in a finite time. This process takes the form of a cooling wave that moves from the ends of the column to the center. Impurities cause a milder, exponential decay, which is still much faster than the algebraic conduction decay. The thermal effectiveness of the end plugs is described by a convective transfer coefficient h_p. Its scaling law (in terms of the coupled plamsa-plug system) reveals that a very high plug-plasma density ratio provides a simple way to significantly retard the cooling.