Monte Carlo estimation of the electric field in stellarators

Abstract

The BETA computer codes have been developed to study ideal magnetohydrodynamic equilibrium and stability of stellarators and to calculate neoclassical transport for electrons as well as ions by the Monte Carlo method. In this paper a numerical procedure is presented to select resonant terms in the electric potential so that the distribution functions and confinement times of the ions and electrons become indistinguishable.In the BETA codes the variational principle of ideal magnetohydrodynamics is implemented as a finite difference scheme to compute the equilibrium of a toroidal plasma in three dimensions without symmetry (1). The The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. §1734 solely to indicate this fact.