A reduced ideal MHD system for nonlinear magnetic field turbulence in plasmas with approximate flux surfaces

Abstract

This paper studies the nonlinear evolution of magnetic field turbulence in proximity of steady ideal Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) configurations characterized by a small electric current, a small plasma flow, and approximate flux surfaces, a physical setting that is relevant for plasma confinement in stellarators. The aim is to gather insight on magnetic field dynamics, to elucidate accessibility and stability of three-dimensional MHD equilibria, as well as to formulate practical methods to compute them. Starting from the ideal MHD equations, a reduced dynamical system of two coupled nonlinear partial differential equations for the flux function and the angle variable associated with the Clebsch representation of the magnetic field is obtained. It is shown that under suitable boundary and gauge conditions such reduced system preserves magnetic energy, magnetic helicity, and total magnetic flux. The noncanonical Hamiltonian structure of the reduced system is identified, and used to show the nonlinear stability of steady solutions against perturbations involving only one Clebsch potential. The Hamiltonian structure is also applied to construct a dissipative dynamical system through the method of double brackets. This dissipative system enables the computation of MHD equilibria by minimizing energy until a critical point of the Hamiltonian is reached. Finally, an iterative scheme based on the alternate solution of the two steady equations in the reduced system is proposed as a further method to compute MHD equilibria. A theorem is proven which states that the iterative scheme converges to a nontrivial MHD equilbrium as long as solutions exist at each step of the iteration.