The plasma is unstable to an ideal MHD kink mode, which is stabilized by the surrounding wall. The instability, coupled with resistive diffusion, leads to an interpenetrating of the toroidal and poloidal fields, and the plasma begins to relax toward a minimum energy state. The simulations presented in this application brief demonstrate the capability of the new MHD code. The code has been developed for parallel computers and can accurately simulate complex plasma dynamics, such as magnetic relaxation. Magnetic relaxation requires large Lundquist number simulations on refined computational grids.
Magnetic relaxation is vital to magnetic confinement and many other plasma related technologies.
Contour plot of poloidal magnetic flux after the relaxation mode has developed. Notice the asymmetric structure of the mode. DEC Alpha workstation at University of Washington. All rights reserved.