MHD Instabilities in Simple Plasma Configuration
Abstract
This work provides what, we hope, is a relatively simple, self contained description of MHD instabilities in plasmas with simple configurations. By simple configuration, we mean a plasma in which all quantities vary in only one spatial direction. We deal with such plasmas here because we want to emphasize the basic physics of MHD instabilities. Although some fusion devices are inherently two or three dimensional in nature, there are others, specifically tokamaks and reversed field pinches which are, to good approximation, one dimensional. Also, these devices both display a wealth of complex MHD activity which can be fruitfully discussed. One deceptive aspect of MHD instabilities is that the simplest ones are extremely easy to understand. However more complicated instabilities, for instance in a plasma where both an axial and azimuthal field are present are much more difficult to visualize; but they are also much more interesting. This work is divided into two parts. Chapters 2-9 describe linear theory and chapters 10-15 describe the nonlinear theory. The latter part is naturally much more speculative than the former because less is known about nonlinear theory.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA144936
Entities
People
- C. Lashmore-davies
- Wallace M. Manheimer
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory