Review of compact torus

A compact torus is a toroidal magnetic plasma containment geometry, in which no conductors or vacuum chamber walls pass through the hole in the torus. This property could ease the constraints upon the construction and maintenance of a reactor. There are two configurations in the compact torus. One is a field reversed configuration (FRC) which consists of poloidal field only. Another is a spheromak which has comparable toroidal and poloidal field components. The present paper is devoted to review the FRC and the spheromak studies for recent five years. Formation, equilibrium and stability of each configuration are described in detail. And the present status of the compact torus research is made clear. (author)