The theory of toroidally confined plasmas. (Q2757767)

This nine-chapter book can be considered as an introduction to magnetohydrodynamical equilibrium of plasma configurations and their stability. This author discusses phenomena important for the magnetic confinement of plasma. The fundamentals of toroidal MHD equilibrium configurations are analyzed in the first chapter. Here the author presents the main physical ideas and mathematical aspects of MHD equilibrium. The main results of the book are based on the assumption of existence of nested magnetic flux surfaces highlighted in chapter 2. The traditional results on the motion of charged particles based on the guiding centre approximation are given in the third chapter. The central fifth chapter is devoted to the behaviour of linear ideal modes. Here the author presents various applications of the perturbation method to the stability analysis of toroidal MHD equilibrium configurations. Particular results are based on the energy conservation for the considered systems. Linear behaviour of resistive MHD tearing, surface kinks, rippling and interchange modes is described in the fifth chapter, whereas the nonlinear behaviour of resistive MHD modes is presented in the sixth chapter. The seventh chapter examines the results on mode-particle interactions that are obtained using analytical calculations and Monte Carlo simulations. In the eighth chapter, the author pays attention to transport phenomena including semi-empirical models for transport and confinement scaling. The final ninth chapter gives a short introduction to phase integral methods for approximate solutions of differential equations. Each chapter of the book includes references and problems. The book may be useful for advanced graduate students and for scientists working in the related fields of physics.