Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X magnetic field to better than 1:100,000

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Access rights

openAccess
publishedVersion

URL

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

Series

Nature Communications, Volume 7

Abstract

Fusion energy research has in the past 40 years focused primarily on the tokamak concept, but recent advances in plasma theory and computational power have led to renewed interest in stellarators. The largest and most sophisticated stellarator in the world, Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), has just started operation, with the aim to show that the earlier weaknesses of this concept have been addressed successfully, and that the intrinsic advantages of the concept persist, also at plasma parameters approaching those of a future fusion power plant. Here we show the first physics results, obtained before plasma operation: that the carefully tailored topology of nested magnetic surfaces needed for good confinement is realized, and that the measured deviations are smaller than one part in 100,000. This is a significant step forward in stellarator research, since it shows that the complicated and delicate magnetic topology can be created and verified with the required accuracy.

Description

Keywords

Other note

Citation

Wendelstein 7-X Team 2016, 'Confirmation of the topology of the Wendelstein 7-X magnetic field to better than 1:100,000', Nature Communications, vol. 7, 13493. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13493