Light is composed (in the particle picture at least) of photons which are neutrally charged particles. As such they are not affected by magnetic fields (which only affect charges MOVING in said magnetic field), outside of weird scenarios like a couple of people above have mentioned.
Yes, but plasma consists of charged particles which can be trapped by electro-magnetic fields. Light (in the wave picture at least) is simply an electro-magnetic field, so if you can tie light in loops theoretically you can also trap the plasma too.
Now I agree that applications are a long way off - this is a theoretical paper so presumably no one has (intentionally) done it yet. If this proves interesting someone would have to build/modify an existing experiment to create and detect the phenomenon, and then there's a long way from there to a practical device, assuming it actually proves technically feasible.
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Light is composed (in the particle picture at least) of photons which are neutrally charged particles. As such they are not affected by magnetic fields (which only affect charges MOVING in said magnetic field), outside of weird scenarios like a couple of people above have mentioned.
Yes, but plasma consists of charged particles which can be trapped by electro-magnetic fields. Light (in the wave picture at least) is simply an electro-magnetic field, so if you can tie light in loops theoretically you can also trap the plasma too. Now I agree that applications are a long way off - this is a theoretical paper so presumably no one has (intentionally) done it yet. If this proves interesting someone would have to build/modify an existing experiment to create and detect the phenomenon, and then there's a long way from there to a practical device, assuming it actually proves technically feasible.