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Release : 2001
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Kind : eBook
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Book Synopsis Open and Closed Magnetic Confinement Systems by :

Download or read book Open and Closed Magnetic Confinement Systems written by . This book was released on 2001. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The results of five decades of experimental investigations of open-ended and closed magnetic confinement geometries are examined to see if intrinsic topology-dependent differences in their cross-field transport can be discerned. The evidence strongly supports a picture in which closed systems (stellarators, tokamaks, reversed-field pinches, etc.) are in all cases studied to date characterized by some level of plasma turbulence, leading to substantial deviations from purely classical cross-field transport. This transport is often describable as a Bohm-like scaling with plasma temperature and magnetic field intensity. By contrast, open systems have in many significant examples been able to approach closely to classically predicted cross-field transport, including cases where the transport appeared to be more than five orders of magnitude slower than the Bohm-diffusion rate. To explain these differences the following tentative hypothesis is put forward: The differences arise from two sources: (1) differences in the instability driving terms arising from free-energy sources, such as current flow along the field lines, etc. and, (2) differences in the nature of the boundary conditions for the various unstable waves that may be stimulated by these free energy sources within the plasma. By analogy with a laser, closed systems, with their flux tubes returning on themselves, resemble a ring resonator, while open systems either have or can be arranged to have absorptive (or low reflectivity) end boundary conditions for unstable waves. It is suggested that if the hypothesis is a valid one it further enhances the desirability of devoting more effort to the investigation of open-ended systems than is now being allotted.