Magnetic field properties in non-axisymmetric divertors

Abstract

Stellarator power plants require a plan for the removal of the particles and the heat that are exhausted across the plasma edge. Unless a flowing liquid metal can be used to carry the helium exhaust to places where it can be removed from the plasma chamber, the particle exhaust must be magnetically diverted into pumping chambers. Studies are required to determine how magnetic features relate to the required divertor properties, how these magnetic features can be produced, and how they can be controlled. General studies are clarified and simplified by the use of the magnetic field line Hamiltonian ψp(ψ,θ,φ) and a vector x→(ψ,θ,φ) that gives the point in space associated with each point in the (ψ,θ,φ) canonical coordinates, a flux and two angles. The non-resonant Fourier terms in ψp can be removed by a canonical transformation, so only resonant Fourier terms can determine the field line properties in the plasma edge and divertor. This paper discusses the important divertor properties and explains how ψp(ψ,θ,φ) and x→(ψ,θ,φ) can be obtained numerically in a special form for any stellarator magnetic field, B→(x→). This form holds between an arbitrary magnetic surface and the chamber walls with the non-resonant terms eliminated. Studies based on variations in the terms in such derived field-line Hamiltonians can determine what magnetic features are mathematically possible and how they could be produced and controlled by the external magnetic field coils.