Magnetic sail significant in the long term. In typical magnetic sail designs, the magnetic field is generated by a loop of superconducting wire. Because loops of current-carrying conductors tend to be forced outwards towards a circular shape by their own magnetic field, the sail could be deployed simply by unspooling the conductor and applying a current through it. The solar wind is a continuous stream of plasma that flows outwards from the Sun: near the Earth's orbit, it contains several million protons and electrons per cubic meter and flows at . The magnetic sail introduces a magnetic field into this plasma flow
Plasma acceleration with PWFA, was reported by a research group at Argonne National Laboratory in 1988. The acceleration gradient for a linear plasma wave is: In this equation, formula_2 is the electric field, formula_3 is the speed of light in vacuum, formula_4 is the mass of the electron, formula_5 is the plasma electron density (in particles per metre cubed), and formula_6 is the permittivity of free space. Currently, plasma-based particle accelerators are in the proof of concept phase at the following institutions: Plasma acceleration Plasma acceleration is a technique for accelerating charged particles, such as electrons, positrons, and ions, using the electric