Abstract Details
Abstracts
Author: Adelle Wright
Requested Type: Poster
Submitted: 2023-03-31 12:12:33
Co-authors: N. Ferraro
Contact Info:
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
100 Stellarator Road
Princeton, 08543
USA
Abstract Text:
The advent of high-fidelity magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of advanced stellarator configurations has opened a new frontier in understanding the nonlinear, macroscopic characteristics of stellarator plasmas. All stellarator optimization and design activities rely on certain assumptions, such as the existence of magnetic surfaces, MHD stability, pressure profiles, and the dynamical accessibility of equilibria. The M3D-C1 code uses a high-fidelity, macroscopic physics model and provides a unique way of assessing the veracity of these assumptions. This enables high-fidelity validation of optimized equilibria, which has not previously been possible. Specifically, the magnetohydrodynamic evolution of the magnetic field and pressure profiles are simulated subject to anisotropic thermal transport and realistic heating sources, without imposing any constraints on the geometry of the plasma or the existence of magnetic surfaces. This includes the calculation of transport due to MHD instabilities which may saturate at finite amplitude without imposing stiff constraints on the plasma profiles. This presentation gives an overview of recent applications of M3D-C1 to analyze the nonlinear MHD stability properties of recently developed stellarator equilibria which were optimized at finite plasma beta for desirable properties including quasisymmetry, energetic particle confinement and self-consistent equilibrium bootstrap current. The results demonstrate the need to directly address nonlinear MHD as part of the optimization and design process.
Comments: