Magnetic Field Line Chaos, Cantori, and Turnstiles in Toroidal Plasmas

TL;DR

This paper explains complex mathematical concepts like chaos, cantori, and turnstiles and illustrates their significance in understanding and solving practical issues in toroidal plasma physics such as magnetic reconnection and disruptions.

Contribution

It provides an accessible explanation of these mathematical concepts and demonstrates their practical relevance in fusion plasma physics applications.

Findings

Clarifies the role of chaos, cantori, and turnstiles in plasma physics

Highlights their impact on understanding magnetic reconnection and disruptions

Bridges mathematical theory with practical fusion plasma problems

Abstract

The mathematical concepts of chaos, cartori, and turnstiles underlie a number of areas of tokamak and stellarator physics. Nevertheless, these concepts have seldom explicitly appeared in publications on fusion plasmas. The absence of physical intuition about these concepts is responsible for misunderstandings and slows developments in a number of areas: magnetic reconnection, the most important electromagnetic correction to what are called electrostatic microinstabilities, non-resonant divertors in stellarators, disruptions and damage from runaway electrons in tokamaks. Physicists become interested in new mathematical concepts when they give insights into and solutions to practical problems. The importance of this review is not only in explaining chaos, cartori, and turnstiles as mathematical concepts but also in illustrating their significance through applications.