Stellarator-spheromak

A novel concept for magnetic plasma confinement, the stellarator-spheromak (SSP), is considered. Actually, this is a non-axisymmetric spheromak where the outboard stellarator windings are used to produce the stellarator effects and the strong outboard magnetic field. The MHD equilibrium in an SSP with very high β (plasma pressure/magnetic field pressure) of the confined plasma is demonstrated. This configuration retains the main advantages of spheromaks, such as compact design and absence of material structures in the center of the torus. At the same time, an SSP has a potential for improving the spheromak concept regarding its main problems: the difficulty of plasma start-up and steady-state operation, and the tilt/shift instability. (orig.)