High-$\beta$ equilibrium and ballooning stability of the low aspect ratio CNT stellarator

TL;DR

This study predicts the existence and stability limits of low aspect ratio CNT stellarator equilibria at high plasma beta, using numerical tools to explore ballooning stability and test computational codes in such regimes.

Contribution

It provides the first numerical analysis of ballooning stability limits in low aspect ratio CNT stellarators at high beta, and evaluates the performance of stellarator codes like VMEC under these conditions.

Findings

Expected beta limits of 0.9-3.0% depending on configuration.

Indications of a second stable ballooning region.

Stability varies with aspect ratio and configuration.

Abstract

The existence and ballooning-stability of low aspect ratio stellarator equilibria is predicted for CNT with the aid of 3D numerical tools. In addition to having a low aspect ratio, CNT is characterized by a low magnetic field and small plasma volume. Also, highly overdense plasmas were recently heated in CNT by means of microwaves. These characteristics suggest that CNT might attain relatively high values of plasma $\beta$ and thus be of use in the experimental study of stellarator stability to high-$\beta$ instabilities such as ballooning modes. As a first step in that direction, here the ballooning stability limit is found numerically. Depending on the particular magnetic configuration we expect volume-averaged $\beta$ limits in the range 0.9-3.0%, and possibly higher, and observe indications of a second region of ballooning stability. As the aspect ratio is reduced, stability is found to increase in some configurations and decrease in others. Energy-balance estimates using stellarator scaling laws indicate that the lower $\beta$ limit may be attainable with overdense heating at powers of of 40 to 100 kW. The present study serves the additional purpose of testing VMEC and other stellarator codes at high values of $\beta$ and at low aspect ratios. For this reason, the study was carried out both for free boundary, for maximum fidelity to experiment, as well as with a fixed boundary, as a numerical test.