Constructing the space of quasisymmetric stellarators through near-axis expansion

Omnigenity is a desirable property of toroidal magnetic fields that ensures confinement of trapped particles. Confining charged particles is a basic requirement for any fusion power plant design, but it can be difficult to satisfy with the non-axisymmetric magnetic fields used by the stellarator approach. Every ideal magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium previously found to approximate omnigenity has been either axisymmetric, quasi-symmetric or has poloidally closed contours of magnetic field strength $B$ . However, general omnigenous equilibria are a much larger design space than these subsets. A new model is presented and employed in the DESC stellarator optimization suite to represent and discover the full parameter space of omnigenous equilibria. Although exact omnigenity aside from quasi-symmetry is impossible, these results reveal that excellent particle confinement can be achieved in practice. Examples far from quasi-symmetry with poloidally, helically and toroidally closed $B$ contours are attained with DESC and shown to have low neoclassical collisional transport and fast particle losses.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Magnetic fields with general omnigenity

Dudt,

Goodman,

Conlin

et al. 2024

Helicity of the magnetic axes of quasi-isodynamic stellarators

Camacho Mata,

Plunk

2023

In this study, we explore the influence of the helicity of the magnetic axis – defined as the self-linking number of the curve – on the quality of quasi-isodynamic stellarator-symmetric configurations constructed using the near-axis expansion method (Plunk et al., J. Plasma Phys., vol. 85, 2019, 905850602; Camacho Mata et al., J. Plasma Phys., vol. 88, 2022, 905880503). A class of magnetic axes previously unexplored within this formalism is identified when analysing the axis shape of the QIPC configuration (Subbotin et al., Nucl. Fusion, vol. 46, 2006, p. 921): the case of half-helicity (per field period). We show that these shapes are compatible with the near-axis formalism and how they can be used to construct near-axis stellarators with up to five field periods, $\def\iotaslash{{\require{HTML} \style{display: inline-block; transform: rotate(-13deg)}{\iota}}\kern-7pt{\require{HTML} \style{display: inline-block; transform: rotate(-25deg)}{-}}}{\epsilon _{\mathrm {eff}}} \approx 1.3\,\%$ , and similar rotational transform to existing conventionally optimized designs, without the need of a plasma boundary optimization.

Asymptotic quasisymmetric high-beta three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic equilibria near axisymmetry

Sengupta,

Nikulsin,

Gaur

et al. 2024

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Quasisymmetry (QS), a hidden symmetry of the magnetic field strength, is known to support nested flux surfaces and provide superior particle confinement in stellarators. In this work, we study the ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equilibrium and stability of high-beta plasma in a large-aspect-ratio stellarator. In particular, we show that the lowest-order description of a near-axisymmetric equilibrium vastly simplifies the problem of three-dimensional quasisymmetric MHD equilibria, which can be reduced to a standard elliptic Grad–Shafranov equation for the flux function. We show that any large-aspect-ratio tokamak, deformed periodically in the vertical direction, is a stellarator with approximate volumetric QS. We discuss exact analytical solutions and numerical benchmarks. Finally, we discuss the ideal ballooning and interchange stability of some of our equilibrium configurations.