The purpose of this article is to explain the current topics associated with MHD and kinetic stability features in the hot electron plasma system such as bumpy tori and tandem mirrors. It is emphasized that the ambipolar fields play an important role on stability and transport in these systems.
Methods and results of computational works on non-axisymmetric systems, such as Helitron, Stellerator, Torsatron and Heliac are reviewed. Enphasis is on the computer codes on MHD equilibrium and stability of non-axisymmetric toroidal plasma.
Principles and methods of simulating a transport process in tandem mirrors with collisions and external sources are reviewed. In particular numerical scheme of two dimensional bounce averaged Fokker-Planck code and its applications are shown. Three dimensional Monte Carlo code is also introduced with numerical scheme of magnetic field and particle orbit calculations. The radial transport code is brifely refered with its references.
The properties of plasma sustainment by inductively driving the toroidal current for a free-boundary spheromak were investigated experimentally by use of the TS-3 spheromak machine, in which a 290 turn OH coil is installed to drive the toroidal current. The lifetime of spheromak plasmas increased from 30μs under non OH operation to 100μs when dφ/dt with a quarter period of 70μs was applied to the plasmas. The time variation of toroidal mode spectrum observed in the current-driven spheromak agrees with the result of 3D-MHD simulation for the relaxation phenomena of spheromak plasma having initially a lower q profile than that of the minimum-energy state.
The Research Information Center of the Institute of Plasma Physics has developed a system of the retrieval and display of the atomic and molecular numerical data on the on-line interactive base. A brief description is given for the batabase and the retrieval display system RIC.