The deuterium nuclei are positively charged and are basically in a penning trap. I don't think electrons would be stable there, and would be attracted to the positively charged electrodes at each end.
The deuterium would start out as a very diffuse gas and a high energy, narrow electron beam (pulsed at the cyclotron frequency) would be used to ionize them at the focus and add energy. The resulting deuterium plasma would be non-neutral. It would want to fly apart, but as it expands the self repulsion should get much weaker allowing the weak magnetic field to steer each ion back toward the focus again. (in 2d, cyclotron motion in a uniform magnetic field is circular)
There are many questions I can't answer about the technical details of how the plasma would evolve with repeated electron beam pulses, and what qualities the beam pulses should have to give the best result... I think it should be short duration, narrow, and high energy.
Likewise, I don't know how high density can get before it starts to cause synchronization problems.
> The resulting deuterium plasma would be non-neutral
Meaning, it would be negatively charged because of the added electrons?
My guess is, you want the plasma to be neutral. (The term I've seen is "div-free" — you want the divergence of the E field to be everywhere zero.) But maybe removing the excess electrons wouldn't be too hard.
Anyway, if you want to chat about this more, feel free to email me — address in profile.
The nuclei would be positive ions... I don't believe free electrons would be stable in a penning trap set up for positive ions. The strongly positive endcaps (my guess is 60kv) would make it unlikely that they would stay in the same region as the positive ions, though I'm not sure.
The goal is for the ions to act like individual ballistic deuterium nuclei flying along a cyclotron trajectory. The density should be very low most of the time, but spike dramatically very briefly.
That line between high density and acting like individual particles is one of the reasons this device is difficult for me to model.
The deuterium would start out as a very diffuse gas and a high energy, narrow electron beam (pulsed at the cyclotron frequency) would be used to ionize them at the focus and add energy. The resulting deuterium plasma would be non-neutral. It would want to fly apart, but as it expands the self repulsion should get much weaker allowing the weak magnetic field to steer each ion back toward the focus again. (in 2d, cyclotron motion in a uniform magnetic field is circular)
There are many questions I can't answer about the technical details of how the plasma would evolve with repeated electron beam pulses, and what qualities the beam pulses should have to give the best result... I think it should be short duration, narrow, and high energy.
Likewise, I don't know how high density can get before it starts to cause synchronization problems.