Equilibrium beta limits in a dipole configuration

Abstract

The levitated dipole configuration is an innovative concept for fusion research. One of the main advantages of the dipole configuration is the possibility of stably confining high plasma pressure compared to the magnetic pressure, that is the possibility of achieving high βs (where β is the ratio between plasma pressure and magnetic pressure).The present work investigates the limit on equilibrium β existing in the dipole system. It is found that a limit exists, which is considerably modified by the presence of plasma rotation in the toroidal direction (the long way around the torus). Plasma anisotropy instead does not modify the limit in any appreciable way for the moderate anisotropies considered in this work.

Magnetic field profiles in fusion plasmas in the presence of equilibrium flow

“…For the tokamaks, We now move to the study of Reversed Field Pinch equilibrium. does not constitute a problem for FLOW, which has in fact been used in the past to model equilibria with purely poloidal magnetic field [17].…”

Diamagnetism of rotating plasma

“…The present paper constitutes an independent confirmation of density localization and a direct comparison between theory and experiment. In addition to the application to mirror geometry, the centrifugal effect can apply similarly to other axisymmetric confinement geometries with rotation 8,9 and astrophysical systems such as Jupiter's magnetosphere 10,11 and accretion disks. 12 The experiments were performed on the Maryland centrifugal experiment (MCX).…”

Theoretical prediction of β and τE in a hard core Z pinch

“…Other examples of pressure profile calculations involve analytical equilibrium and stability properties in the ideal point dipole geometry, carried out by Krasheninnikov, Catto and Hazeltine [8,9]. Recently, Guazzotto and Freidberg have presented numerical calculations predicting the equilibrium beta limit for the actual LDX geometry with and without flow [10] Along a different path, a nonlinear numerical simulation has been carried out by Pastukhov and Chudin [11,12]. They use a time dependent, reduced MHD model in cylindrical geometry to model a hard core Z-pinch.…”