Efficiency of Wave-Driven Rigid Body Rotation Toroidal Confinement

TL;DR

This paper compares wave-driven poloidal rotation and toroidal current generation in toroidal magnetic confinement, analyzing their energy efficiency and implications for sustaining radial electric fields versus poloidal magnetic fields.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of wave-driven mechanisms for plasma confinement, highlighting the efficiency advantages of radial electric field generation over toroidal current drive.

Findings

Radial electric field energy content is smaller than poloidal magnetic field energy for similar orbits.

Wave-driven radial electric field generation is more efficient than toroidal current generation at large aspect ratio.

The study offers insights into optimizing energy use in magnetic confinement systems.

Abstract

The compensation of vertical drifts in toroidal magnetic fields through a wave-driven poloidal rotation is compared to compensation through the wave driven toroidal current generation to support the classical magnetic rotational transform. The advantages and drawbacks associated with the sustainment of a radial electric field are compared with those associated with the sustainment of a poloidal magnetic field both in terms of energy content and power dissipation. The energy content of a radial electric field is found to be smaller than the energy content of a poloidal magnetic field for a similar set of orbits. The wave driven radial electric field generation efficiency is similarly shown, at least in the limit of large aspect ratio, to be larger than the efficiency of wave-driven toroidal current generation.