Pressure profiles of a plasma confined by the magnetic field of a ring current

Pressure profiles p(ψ) marginal with respect to convective instability in a toroidal tubular plasma confined by the magnetic field of an internal levitated ring current and external ring currents are studied as functions of the shape of the magnetic separatrix. Configurations are found in which the maximum plasma pressure in a finite-width layer near the plasma boundary decreases by two orders of magnitude at the expense of artificially raising the effective length (characterized by the integral ∮dl/B) of the magnetic field lines near the separatrix surface. It is shown that, in the case of a straight cylindrical tubular plasma, which is the limiting case of a toroidal configuration with an arbitrarily large aspect ratio, the sufficient condition for the plasma to be MHD stable against both convective and kink perturbations is satisfied for local values β≤0.4. __________ Translated from Fizika Plazmy, Vol. 26, No. 6, 2000, pp. 519–528. Original Russian Text Copyright ￠ 2000 by Popovich, Shafranov.