Mainz 2022 – scientific programme

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P: Fachverband Plasmaphysik

P 19: Poster II

P 19.20: Poster

Thursday, March 31, 2022, 16:00–17:30, P

Optimal Quasi-isodynamic Stellarator Magnetic Equilibria Using a Direct Construction Approach — •Katia Camacho Mata, Gabriel Plunk, Michael Drevlak, and Per Helander — Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik, Greifswald, Germany

Two important requirements for a viable stellarator reactor are easy-to-build-coils and good confinement. Omnigenous configurations, traditionally found through numerical optimization, fulfil the good confinement properties requirement but tend to need complex coils to be realised. However, it is unknown whether such complexity is fundamentally necessary.

To explore this question, we use a method developed for the direct construction of omnigenous MHD (Magnetohydrodynamic) equilibria [1], numerically, at first order from the magnetic axis. It avoids the computational cost of conventional optimization and allows a thorough survey of the space of omnigenous stellarators at large aspect ratio.

Omnigenous magnetic fields are necessarily non-analytical and can only be physically realised by a smooth approximation. In previous works this condition was met by introducing regions where omnigeneity was abandoned. A different approach, employing a smoother approximation, and higher number of field periods is analysed in this work aiming to identify configurations that can be realised with easy-to-build coils.

[1]Plunk, G. G., et. al. (2019). Direct construction of optimized stellarator shapes. Part 3. Omnigenity near the magnetic axis. Journal of Plasma Physics, 85(6).