Magnetic Flux Array for the Terrestrial Reconnection Experiment (TREX)

The Terrestrial Reconnection Experiment (TREX) at the Wisconsin Plasma Astrophysics Laboratory (WiPAL) studies kinetic reconnection in a variety of regimes. As currently configured, TREX is designed to use Helmholtz coils outside the 3m spherical WiPAL vacuum vessel to create a field that opposes a different field pulsed on by two internal coils. In order to characterize the main properties of the reconnection process in a single shot, we have constructed a nine-layered, 160 channels magnetic flux array. This array allows us to infer the magnetic flux function, $\Psi$, and thus the toroidal component of the vector potential, $A_{\phi}$, as a function of time for each shot. From $A_{\phi}$, we further obtained the magnetic field geometry, current density, and reconnection rate [1]. Preliminary data from this flux array will be presented. \\[1ex][1] Kesich et al., Review of Scientific Instruments 79,063505 (2008).