An artificially structured boundary (ASB) produces a short-range, static electromagnetic field that can reflect charged particles. In the work presented, an ASB is considered to consist of a spatially periodic arrangement of electrostatically plugged magnetic cusps. When used to create an enclosed volume, an ASB may confine a non-neutral plasma that is effectively free of applied electromagnetic fields, provided the spatial period of the ASB-applied field is much smaller than any one dimension of the confinement volume. As envisioned, a non-neutral positron plasma could be confined by an ASB along its edge, and the space-charge of the positron plasma would serve to confine an antiproton plasma. If the conditions of the two-species plasma are suitable, production of antihydrogen via three-body recombination for antimatter gravity studies may be possible. A classical trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) simulation suite has been developed in C++ to efficiently simulate charged particle interactions with user defined electromagnetic fields. The code has been used to explore several ASB configurations, and a concept for a cylindrically symmetric ASB trap that employs a picket-fence magnetic field has been developed. Particle-in-cell (PIC) modeling has been utilized to investigate the confinement of non-neutral and partially neutralized positron plasmas in the trap.

Magnetic plasma expulsion uses a magnetic field distortion to redirect incident charged particles around a certain area for the purposes of shielding. Computational studies are carried out and for certain values of magnetic field, magnetic plasma expulsion is found to effectively shield a sizable area. There are however many plasma behaviors and interactions that must be considered. Applications to a new cryogenic antimatter trap design are discussed.