Stable, thermal equilibrium, large-amplitude, spherical plasma oscillations in electrostatic confinement devices

The problem of large-amplitude spherical oscillations of an ion cloud in an Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) device is examined. It is shown that ion fluctuations of a Gaussian profile in a spherical, harmonic well are stable to all hydrodynamic modes, and stable oscillations about the oscillating equilibrium state may be damped by continuum damping. It is also shown that the ion state forms a thermal equilibrium, in spite of the orders of magnitude, density, and temperature changes during the oscillation cycle. Finally, a brief discussion of how to experimentally realize the required electron distributions for these oscillations is presented.