magnetic mirror

American

noun

Physics.

a region in a magnetic bottle where the magnetic field increases abruptly, causing charged particles that enter it to be reflected.

magnetic mirror British

noun

physics a configuration of magnetic fields used to confine charged particles, as in a magnetic bottle

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of magnetic mirror

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

They report their discovery in the article "Modulated Kondo screening along magnetic mirror twin boundaries in monolayer MoS2" in Nature Physics.

From Science Daily • Nov. 15, 2023

If field strength increases in the direction of motion, the field will exert a force to slow the charges, forming a kind of magnetic mirror, as shown below.

From Textbooks • Aug. 12, 2015

Just as like poles of ordinary horseshoe magnets repel each other, so do the train's superconductive magnets repel their magnetic "mirror images" in the aluminum strips.

From Time Magazine Archive

At each end the magnetic field is given added strength to form a magnetic "mirror," which reflects back the charged particles as they try to escape, thus sealing the gas in a magnetic bottle.

From Time Magazine Archive

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023