Hamilton--Jacobi theory for continuation of magnetic field across a toroidal surface supporting a plasma pressure discontinuity

TL;DR

This paper develops a Hamilton--Jacobi framework to analyze the continuation of magnetic fields across a plasma surface with pressure discontinuity, linking the problem to invariant tori in Hamiltonian dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces a Hamilton--Jacobi approach to magnetic field continuation across discontinuities, connecting plasma boundary conditions to invariant tori in phase space.

Findings

Existence of invariant tori is necessary for magnetic field continuation.

The continued magnetic field's rotational transform is generally irrational.

The boundary conditions reduce the problem to solving a Hamilton--Jacobi equation.

Abstract

The vanishing of the divergence of the total stress tensor (magnetic plus kinetic) in a neighborhood of an equilibrium plasma containing a toroidal surface of discontinuity gives boundary and jump conditions that strongly constrain allowable continuations of the magnetic field across the surface. The boundary conditions allow the magnetic fields on either side of the discontinuity surface to be described by surface magnetic potentials, reducing the continuation problem to that of solving a Hamilton--Jacobi equation. The characteristics of this equation obey Hamiltonian equations of motion, and a necessary condition for the existence of a continued field across a general toroidal surface is that there exist invariant tori in the phase space of this Hamiltonian system. It is argued from the Birkhoff theorem that existence of such an invariant torus is also, in general, sufficient for continuation to be possible. An important corollary is that the rotational transform of the continued field on a surface of discontinuity must, generically, be irrational.