N Ivan Arnold

PHYS 6620
Spring 2011
Spheromaks have the semantic distinction of being both a device and
a plasma configuration. Specifically, the term can be used to describe
any plasma that is maintained by its own internal field structure
without the aid of external coils, or the devices utilized to produced
such a configuration. Here, we describe the basics of spheromak
structure, design, and diagnostics, with a rudimentary treatment of the
underlying mathematics and theory, along with an overview of both
laboratory and space applications.
Introduction- The fourth state of matter
Plasmas, of both the laboratory and natural
variety, occur when a gas gains enough
kinetic energy for the bound electrons to
escape the electromagnetic forces that bind
them to their respective ions. As such, a
plasma can be thought of as a collection of
ions and electrons in collective motion. In the
absence of an external source of electron or
ions, plasmas typically have roughly equal
electron and ion densities. This means that, in
a sense, a plasma is a neutral but electrically
conducting gas. The laws of fluid dynamics,
in addition to Maxwell's equations from
electromagnetic theory, are often used to
study, characterize, and predict the behavior
of plasmas. The field that arises from this
study is called magnetohydrodynamics
(MHD).
Plasmas occur naturally in a variety of
situations. The solar corona, earth's
magnetosphere, the solar wind, the aurora
borealis, and the cold, seemingly void space
between the stars are all examples of naturally
occurring plasmas. Indeed, it has been stated
that approximately 99% of the matter in the
universe is in the plasma state. In the
laboratory, a plasma that is dense enough for
the particles to interact electromagnetically
must have sufficient kinetic energy for the
electron to remain unbound. This translates to
an average electron temperature greater than
several electron volts (1eV~11,600K).
Any attempt to create a laboratory plasma
must therefore employ some type of
confinement scheme, otherwise energy loss
due to convection will quickly cause electrons
to recombine with ions, causing the plasma to
revert to a gaseous state. There are many
different confinement schemes currently
utilized in the study of laboratory plasmas;
most use external field coils to generate a
geometric combination of magnetic fields
inside a confinement chamber. In Plasma
fusion, these chambers are often toroidal, and
the field coils are designed to generate a
combination of both poloidal and toroidal
magnetic fields. Charged particles flow along
these field lines in accordance with the
Lorentz force law;

F=qv

B , and are thus

confined to the interior of the chamber, away
from the containing wall. Common
confinement schemes include the tokamak,
the stellerator, and the reverse field pinch
(RFP). All three use toroidal coils to trap
plasmas. Two notable exceptions are the
confinement schemes within the spheromak
and the field reversed configuration (FRC).
Neither of these schemes use external field
coils.
Device Axisymm
etry?
Toroidal
Field
Topology
FRC yes no spheroidal
Sphero
mak
yes yes spheroidal
RFP yes yes toroidal
Tokamak yes yes toroidal
Stellerat
or
no yes toroidal
Table 1: A summary of various confinement
schemes.
The primary difference between the FRC and
the spheromak is that the former has zero
toroidal field everywhere, while the latter
creates its own toroidal field by self-inducing
currents within the plasma in a attempt to
achieve a least-energy configuration, in
accordance with the laws of MHD. In
addition, spheromaks have no toroidal
magnetic field at the bounding surface, which
translates to zero toroidal field at the wall in
laboratory applications. Figure 1 shows some
common field configurations, with their
associated flux surfaces. The configuration
labeled ST applies to both stellarator and
tokamak geometries.
Of the common laboratory confinement
schemes, only the FRC is simpler than the
spheromak. Unfortunately, the FRC is
inherently MHD unstable due to its complete
lack of toroidal field. This gives the
spheromak the distinction of being the
simplest laboratory configuration that is
capable of achieving MHD equilibrium.
Spheromak plasmas are highly dependent on
the topology of the J

B hydromagnetic
force. In toroidal magnetic fields, charged
particles move along flux surfaces,
generating a plasma current

J . These
particles then experience a force, directed
radially in the

B direction, which
causes expansion. Confinement schemes
therefore try to minimize this

B force in
an attempt to establish or maintain
equilibrium. In 1950 Lundquist (cite this)
investigated

B equilibria in solar and

magnetospheric plasmas and showed that for
small hydrodynamic pressure

B0 . If
we make this assumption and take the curl of
Ampere's law, we get what is known as the
the force-free MHD equation:

B=\

B (1)
Lundquist proceeded to solve this equation,
arriving at the equilibrium solution (cite):

B=B J
1
o)

0+J
0
o) z (2)
Where
J
1
, J
0
are Bessel functions of the
first kind. This is known as either the
Lundquist solution or the Bessel function
model (BFM), and requires a helical toroidal
field.
Spheromaks:
Historically, spheromak research grew out of
some unanticipated results from the ZETA
reverse field pinch (RFP) operated at Culham
in the UK during the 1950's. An RFP is nearly
identical to the tokamak in its general
construction, but the externally generated
toroidal field is much weaker, while toroidal

Figure 1: Common Field Configurations
currents are much larger. Researchers noted
that when this toroidal field dipped below
some minimum value, the initially unstable
plasma would settle into a stable state. In
addition, if the ratio of toroidal current to
toroidal field was high enough, the toroidal
field would reverse its polarity at the wall. In
1974, Taylor proposed an explanation that
relied on one primary assumption; the
conservation of magnetic helicity.
We can define magnetic helicity as follows. In
a force-free system subject to the laws of
ideal MHD, there are two invariants [2].
The total energy:
W=

B
2
8n
+
p
y1
) dV (3)
and the infinite set of integrals given by:
K
l
=

BdV ; l =0,1,2,3. .. (4)

Where the integrals are over the volumes of
each flux tube. In equations (3) and (4) p is
the pressure, A is the magnetic vecot
potential, and is the ratio of specific heats.
Therefore the total magnetic flux of the
system is conserved. In equations (3) and (4)
p is the pressure, A is the magnetic vector
potential, and is the ratio of specific heats.
According to variational theory, the preferred
state of the MHD system can determined by
minimizing W with respect to the infinite set
of integrals K
l
. Taylor observed that,
according to equation (4), that the final,
least-energy configuration of the system
depended in a very detailed and complicated
way on the initial state. This contradicted
observations, which tended to support that
the final state of the system was independent
of its initial conditions. Taylor proposed that,
in a plasma with large but finite conductivity,
bounded by a surface with infinite
conductivity (or in the case of laboratory
plasmas, an extremely large conductivity),
all of the integrals represented by (4) would
no longer retain their invariancy with the
exception of the flux tube tangent to the
bounding surface, K
o
. There is then the
single invariant
K
o
=

BdV
where the integration is now taken over only
the volume of the entire plasma volume. The
quantity K
o
is the magnetic helicity of the
system. Minimizing W (3) with respect to
this single invariant leads directly back to (1)

B=\

B (1)
with the associated Lundquist solution in (2).
In this way Taylor showed that Lundquist's
Bessel function model was appropriate to
describe the behavior of the ZETA RFP.
The ZETA RFP is an example of a doubly
connected toroidal geometry, and as such is
different from spheromak geometry, which is
simply connected and spherical. In 1979,
Rosenbluth and Bussac extended Taylor's
RFP formulation to a spherical geometry, with
the result that the minimum energy states
now have no external current, and therefore
eliminate the need for external coils. The
topology then reduces to that of a simply
connected sphere, and the authors coined the
phrase spheromak to describe these
systems. They were not, however, the first to
derive spherical solutions to force-free MHD
equations. That distinction goes to the
inimitable Chandrasekhar, who had
investigated these solutions more than a
decade earlier.
Spheromak plasmas thus have the following
distinctive features.
1) Spheromaks are simply connected and
spherical.
2) Spheromaks have zero toroidal magnetic
field at the the wall.
3) Spheromaks have no external field coils;
internal toroidal fields are the result of plasma
self-organization that results from the plasma
seeking a minimum energy state. This state is
known as the Taylor state.
4) The flux surfaces within spheromaks are
entirely the consequence of instabilities
within the plasma.
5) Due to their self-creating nature,
spheromaks do not have to be as meticulously
engineered as other confinement schemes.
Indeed, there are several methods that are
used to create spheromaks; all result in the
same characteristic plasma configuration.
How to make a spheromak-
References:
[1] Paul Bellan, "Spheromaks", Imperial College Press, 2000
[2] S. Ortolani, Dalton D. Schnack, Magnetohydrodynamics of plasma relaxation ,
World Scientific, 1993
[3] http://www.frascati.enea.it/ProtoSphera/ProtoSphera%202001/1.%20General%20framework.htm
[4] http://ve4xm.caltech.edu/Bellan_plasma_page/howto.htm
Figure 2: Examples of simply and doubly
connected topology
Simply Connected Doubly connected