Return to the original Virtual Reactor Lab
Reduced model: trapping here means a collisionless particle satisfies the first-adiabatic-invariant mirror condition. It does not establish macroscopic confinement time or reactor feasibility. For deterministic full-orbit tracers and the conditional source-to-electricity ledger, open the Virtual Reactor Lab 3D.
Mirror diagnostics
Axial field and particle parallel energy
Pitch-angle acceptance
For an isotropic velocity distribution, the collisionless trapped fraction is √(1−1/Rm). This is a geometric phase-space fraction, not a residence-time prediction.
Scientific interpretation
Pass
Loss-cone relation, nonrelativistic magnetic-moment turning/bounce approximations, relativistic gyrofrequency/radius, plasma beta, electron-only Debye length, and volume are dimensionally explicit.
Qualification gate
The lab samples max ρ(z)|∇B|/B over the classically accessible in-device half-orbit. A result above 0.1 is flagged; passing only supports first-order adiabatic reasoning.
Not solved
Ambipolar potential, collisions, microinstabilities, MHD, end plugs, neutral beams, alpha slowing-down, ash, radiation, transport, coils, walls, and power balance.